


Forget The Present Tense

by garnettrees



Series: I Set My Clocks Early ('Cause I Know I'm Always Late) [1]
Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angry Erik, Army, BAMF Charles, Beast Hank, Calm Down Erik, Canon Jewish Character, Car Accidents, Cerebro, Charles Being Concerned, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Conspiracy, Crossover, Dimension Travel, Doppelganger, Erik Being Cocky, Erik Does Not Share Well, Erik Logic Is The Best Logic, Erik has Feelings, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12-year Old Girl, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, Even With Himself, Hank Being Awesome, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, Injury Recovery, M/M, Medical Trauma, Multiverse, Mutant Powers, Mutant Rights, None Of This Is Hank's Fault, Paralysis, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Use, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-X-Men: Days of Future Past, Protective Erik, Pseudoscience, Quantum Mirror, Self-Medication, Smitten Erik, Soul Bond, Stop Dropping Stadiums on People Erik, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, Telepathy, Time Travel, Trask Industries, Veterans, dream-sharing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-02-25 01:38:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2603807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garnettrees/pseuds/garnettrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik Lehnsherr has enough on his plate without delving into the supernatural or metaphysical. Two years after the injury that forced him out of the Army, he's still struggling with psychological and physical aspects of recovery. The strange dreams that comforted him in the hospital, however, have begun to take an alarming turn. He can no longer resist the draw towards a little town called Westchester, and the tantalizing possibility that Charles might be real.</p><p>Whatever it may cost him. </p><p>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I need another WIP like I need a hole in my head. Actually, I'm sure I have several holes in my head already-- which probably make very nice windows for the enjoyment of all the voices therein. ^_~ I have at least another chapter of this written, as well as another chapter of All Empires Laid Low, so we'll see which one gets cleaned up first. In the interim, I hope you enjoy the start of this yarn.
> 
> General Disclaimer: I have never served in any branch of the Armed Forces, though I have the honor of being related to several who do. This does not make me an expert by any stretch of the imagination, and I apologize for any toes (metaphorical or otherwise) I may step on during this fic in advance. I tried to use just enough detail to make the story interesting, and not enough to bog things down or speak to things I have no authority on. ;-)
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings:** Mentions of PTSD, both in canon timeline and outside of it. Ill-advised self-medication, mentions of drug and alcohol use. Recovery from dependency on said, PAWS (post acute withdrawal syndrome), night-terrors, brief suicidal ideation, and dark humor. 
> 
> As always, I thank you so very much for taking the time to read this story. If I could trouble you to 'kudo', or even leave a comment, I would be very grateful. <3

_It's so thrilling but also wrong_  
_Don't have to prove that you are so strong_  
_'Cause I can carry you on my back  
_ _After our enemies attack_

_I tried to tell you before I left_  
_But I was screaming under my breath_  
_You are the only thing that makes sense_  
_Just ignore all this present tense  
_ -"It's Beginning to Get To Me", by Snow Patrol

  


  
Erik Lehnsherr tells himself-- as he has been doing for the past five exits-- that he is going to take the next ramp off this westbound highway, turn his bike around, and put a stop to this nonsense. He's going to ignore the thankfully still metaphorical (for now) voices in his head, any and all mysterious magnetic pulls or compulsions, and march his happy ass home, as they said in his EOD days. He continues convincing himself of this even as he and his sleek Kawasaki blow past yet another off-ramp-- and then past yet one more. The third one is, of course, the charm. By then, it's just too late; the exit sign reads WESTCHESTER, day-glow white on green. He's not surprised the town is here-- after all, that's what google is for. Its existence signifies nothing, just as little or less than it did when he first accidentally came upon the little dot of a township while hunting down a decent Mongolian restaurant for Magda's birthday dinner. Never the less, he can't help the wired feeling creeping into his nerve endings. The subtle pull he's been feeling for weeks has become a pulsing sense of _rightness_ that says 'almost home, almost home', no matter how hard he tries to ignore it. Slowing, he changes lanes and follows the curve of the road to the first stoplight in what looks like any number of other sleepy New England hamlets. 

  
Ridiculous Army slang or no, Erik is _not_ particularly happy, but he doesn't actually consider that a valid complaint. That's life in the 21st Century, isn't it? It's the human condition, actually. His mother (G-d rest her) would have said that human beings found innumerable ways of making themselves miserable, and they hardly needed help from Ha'Satan to do it. What does Erik have to complain about? He has a good job, minimal debt, and is finishing his degree on the GI bill in the evenings. He completed one tour in Iraq, rolled the dice with a re-up, and made it less than halfway through a second before he finally came across an IED that disagreed with him. That he's alive at all-- and in possession of all his various parts-- is a miracle. Eight other people _died_ in that explosion, including two guys from his own unit. He has a lot to be grateful for, he tells that gnawing sense of disquiet. Everyone should be so lucky. 

He is especially attentive to this mantra on days when the metal plate and considerable number of screws in his body will not stop aching, singing their impossible aria of old and decaying pain. It goes in tandem with the chant that the few narcotics he has socked away in his medicine cabinet would be a Bad Life Choice; and that goes double for nights when the pain is bearable, but the memories are not. The blank hours that exist after midnight and before 5 AM, the ones that see him screaming fit to rip his vocal chords to useless shreds. On those nights, he washes down the prescription Ambien with a couple of bottles of Mike's Hard Lemonade (also a Bad Life Choice, but what can you do?), and prays for the _other_ dreams, no matter how crazy they make him feel. When you're foundering in a squall of post-traumatic stress and its associated insomnia, Lehnsherr has found that you'll grab onto anything, no matter how insane it seems. Or you'll let it grab onto you, as Erik had when he first woke in the hospital in Landstuhl-- in pain past all hope, all reason. It had been the kind of pain the mind shied away from considering ever after, superstitiously afraid of calling it back. The truncated memories are like flash-burns, in which all objective identity narrowed down to individual tortured nerve-endings. Awash in such impossible tides and pumped full of a not-quite-equal number of pain killers, he had dreamed. Surprisingly strong arms caught him up, a submerged embrace from behind. A voice that was _not_ a voice, but still the most beautiful sound Erik had ever heard, was telling him he must fight-- that if he did not, he would drown. This 'voice' had addressed him directly, saying his name in an aching caress, sympathetic but firm. What else could Sergeant Lehnsherr do but obey? 

  
Now in Westchester proper, or at least on the main drag, Erik pulls into the first gas station he sees. It's as nondescript as the rest of the town-- a cardboard backdrop of Anytown, USA. He's not really sure what he was expecting, or if he had any preconceived notions at all. After all, it's not the town he's been dreaming of for the past two years, it's the house. (It's _him_ , Charles. It's as simple as that; the shining nexus, the masculine beauty that launched a thousand ships. There's precious little in Erik's life that has truly moved him, and even less to inspire positive awe, but there's also only so much he's willing to admit to in the blinding April sunlight.) 

There are two women-- 'soccer-mom' types-- at the gas pumps, and they give first the motorcycle and then Erik a dubious look. Their combined gaze lingers on Lehnsherr's actual person, trying to get a read: black jeans and dress shirt augmented by his battered Army jacket, hair just long enough to start curling at the nape of his neck when he removes his helmet. Clean-shaven, young, no tattoos-- but the vintage aviator sunglasses, starched shirt, and combat boots seem to weigh equally against him. The general consensus appears as a conservative frown, and it carries over to the old man and slim counter-girl inside the quick-stop, too. Smiling internally, Erik walks past them all as though he hasn't even registered their existence. He enjoys throwing people off-guard. It gives him a chance to assess them before they've even begun to recover themselves, in most cases. And, while it's true that strategic intelligence is less applicable in civilian life (corporate politics not withstanding), it's not as though he can just turn that part of himself off. 

  


He stalks immediately back to the refrigerated section, staring fixedly as though the question of Gatorade versus Mountain Dew is an entirely absorbing one. Is he really going to do this? Follow a reoccurring dream like Joseph in the days of the Torah, as if the vague insinuation of a brighter _something_ is a promise the Universe might actually keep? He'd gone down to the VA in Montrose this morning, intensely aware that the trip took him far closer to Westchester than his own small, un-incorportated township. All the same, he'd gone more than an hour out of his way, instead of just heading home. Which is fine, there's no one expecting him and he does a four-by-ten work week specifically so he can make his monthly appointments. The most pressing engagements the afternoon might hold would be a date with Netflix, or a couple of hours fiddling with the engine of his ancient-artifact used Camaro. _This_ , this is a fool's errand-- he knows that. He must know that, if only to shore up against the impending heartbreak when logical, empirical reality once more reasserts itself. 

Lehnsherr has carried this secret for two years and, while there are doubtless others who have carried far worse for far longer, it's still exhausting. He has no living family, and only one close friend. Telling Magda would only worry her, and complicate matters when she (inevitably well-meaning) tried to help. Intellectually, he knows the VA psychiatrist he has to see monthly to obtain his meds isn't _actually_ waiting for him to crack, but it feels like it, because Erik is waiting too. Will he know it when he sees it, that final long step off a short pier? Has he passed it already, as oblivious as as a man lost in thick 

( _smoke, ashes; G-d, the smell of cold and iron, the smell of burning hair and cooking flesh_ ) 

fog? The form he has to fill out before each visit doesn't help; 'Have you experienced any suicidal ideation since your last session?' Erik is half-temped to write down, _'If I really had, would I actually tell you?'_ , but he already knows his gallows' humor goes unappreciated by Dear Ol' Doc. 

At the end of the day there is another, far more atavistic motive for his silence. He doesn't want to share Charles, not with anyone. Before she died (was killed, and may the bastard forever be cursed) Erik's mother had a beautiful antique doll. An actual Dresden doll, with a cloth body, and china head and limbs so white they looked disconcertingly like bone. It was an unusual piece, a lady-doll with with a wistful expression and jewel-colored clothes-- no baby or girl-child this. He was given to understand it had been ferried over by some maiden aunt or cousin generations prior, and that Mama had played with it when she was small. The left hand had been assiduously glued back together from several pieces and, ever after, Edie Lensherr (nee Eisenhardt) had kept it behind glass, on a shelf. You did that sometimes, Erik now understands, with the things you loved best: to protect it from the carelessness of others, and sometimes from your own. 

Who ever heard of getting protective over a delusion, though? 

  


Erik decides on Mountain Dew (he only slept two hours last night, after all), and tables the other question for later. He makes his way towards the cash register, knowing he really is going through with this. He won't be getting back on the highway until he's satisfied himself that the house in his dreams definitely does or does not exist in physical Westchester. It's too late to turn back now. 

  
There is no line at the check-out, and Erik makes small talk with the cashier, mostly to keep that last thought from developing into a lyric in his mind. 

( _'It's too late to turn back now / I believe, I believe, I believe I'm falling in love.'_ ) 

He looks down, idly perusing the ridiculously sugary snacks while she makes his change. Before she can hand it over, he grabs something from the rack with a surprised, pleased smile. It's a pack of wax-bottle candies-- the kind with the artificially flavored goo inside. Mama loved those, and Erik hasn't seen them in years. The last thing he needs is more sugar on top of the already loaded soda when he can feel a headache waiting in the wings, but he'll save them for later. It's stupid, but little things like that make him feel as though his mother is winking at him, sharing a little inside joke from that vague 'beyond'. 

"Sorry," he says to the girl, "Would you mind adding these too?" 

"Don't mind at all," she replies pleasantly. Her glance is admiring, but not flirtatious. Lehnsherr isn't much for women (and this one, looking fresh out of her senior year of high school, makes him feel old), but he stuck to them scrupulously while he was property of the US Army. Official tolerance and revised legislation are all well and good, but Erik knows hearts aren't rewritten or vetoed quite so easily. He hadn't been looking for anything permanent with either gender, and he definitely hadn't wanted the hassle. It was hard to commit when you knew you'd spend almost every day of deployment intimately involved with the innards or one IED or another. 

Now he gives the girl a brotherly smile, and asks if she can point him in the direction of Graymalkin Lane. 

"Sure," she says, gesturing vaguely to the northeast. He already knows where it is-- that's why G-d invented Google-- but that isn't the point of the question. The clerk is still smiling, holding out the bag with his Mountain Dew and wax candy, nothing at all amiss with her expression. Nothing odd about his request, then; no Shirley Jackson-esque warnings about nightfall and houses that have fallen malignantly comatose. "You'll have to take the long way 'round, though. Tree fell on the main road after all the storms we've been having. Go along Wilkens-- that's the main drag-- all the way down to the McDonald's. There's a really narrow through-street behind it, cuts back to Memorial, and you'll turn onto Graymalkin from there." 

That, he would not have learned from the ubiquitous internet. He thanks her, takes his bag and the change, and promptly has to force a crowd of rowdy teenage boys to part for him when they barge through the near-by door. They're annoyed, but Lehnsherr has the sort of bearing drilled into grunts from Basic on up, and all they do is watch his exit with the narrow eyes of adolescence. He wonders why there's a pack of them running loose at this hour, then remembers Spring Break. That thought is disproportionately disheartening. He's old enough to have forgotten the unique time-keeping of youth. Even through college, the calendar had remained dominated not by seasons, solstices, or fiscal quarters, but by the ever-hallowed notion of NO SCHOOL. It's not as though he doesn't know-- hasn't known for years-- that he's a 'grown-up'; bills, student loans, and income tax have a way of pounding that point home-- never mind active combat. Still, it gives him a strange sense of doubleness. His mother was twenty-eight when she gave birth to him, just a year older than he is now. Jakob and Edie were twenty-five and twenty-one respectively, when they stood under the wedding _chuppah_ and got hitched. Taking on either responsibility seems utterly incomprehensible right now. Or at any time in the future, really. 

  


It's a bright, beautiful day outside-- one of those rare days that seem made for riding, walking, or any number of other outdoor activities. Even if he hadn't had his special side-trip planned, Erik would have taken the scenic way home. In spite of the new growth and vibrant spring colors (or perhaps because of them), he feels a now-familiar prickle of self-destructive temptation unfurl from behind his sinking stomach, moving up towards his heart. It doesn't break his stride, of course, or impact the practiced way he mounts up the Kawasaki, stowing his goodies in the saddlebag. It's just a little voice, a venomous side-kick, asking about the _point_ of graceful trees and good weather; about the cost-benefit analysis of kicking around as one of the billions of human beings practically infesting the planet. The pleasure of working on a classic car or motor, of completing a particularly good sketch or having a nice, companionable dinner with Madga… what does it all add up to? Two people came out of that marketplace bombing-- that Erik was one of them is statistically unlikely, especially considering how close he was to the blast. Who is he to spurn a gift, even one mistakenly given? 

( _And yet, he sees that hand in his dreams. Almost lying over his face, burnt and disarticulated, though he hadn't been lucid enough to realize it at the time. He knew who it was though, by those relentlessly bitten nails. Hadn't Munoz been bitching, just the other day, about why the hell someone so goddamn nervous and squirrelly would get a job defusing bombs? For one insane moment, Erik had thought Private Newcomb was shielding his eyes for some unfathomable reason, and he still wakes up thinking he can feel that palm-- the sweat hadn't even _dried_ yet-- against him, reflecting his breath, smothering him with a scent that makes you almost hungry and completely soul-sick all at once._ ) 

People who think despair only comes in the dark watches of the night just haven't been cohabitating with it long enough, in Erik's mind. That bastard breezes in and out with out so much as a by-your-leave. The original guerrilla warrior cum obnoxious roommate. 

  


  
It doesn't take long to find the alternate road the clerk told him about. There are even a few moderately spacious houses arranged as Memorial Road turns into Graymalkin Lane, and Lehnsherr foolishly allows himself to experience a slight encouragement. It doesn't last, though; the houses taper off to a thin belt of trees with fields beyond, and then finally to genuine woods. The lane runs for quite a distance-- he'd seen that on the map-- but it also twists and dips along the rural landscape, clearly the remnant of some colonial farming manse that got swallowed up by the town. The grass is already tall, weeds and the occasional cornflower rambling amongst equally unruly shrubbery; trees slowly being strangled by doddy and kudzu. 

There's nothing here, and Erik has been a fool to think otherwise. After all, if there _were_ a house (especially of the size he's looking for), he would have been able to see it from the comfort of his own laptop. A structure like that isn't blocked by trees on satellite images, or it would have shown up as just a boxy outline on the 'map-view'. 

_Ze ma sheyesh_. There's no one around to see the expression on his face as he slowly tools along the pavement, but Lehnsherr is glad of his helmet anyway. G-d only knows how he looks-- his damned eyes are prickling, and the only 'feeling' he has is that of someone taking an ice-cream scoop to his insides. Bugger- _fuck_. Could he be any more of an asshole if he tried? 

  
Except… There are a couple of red bricks poking out of the underbrush up ahead. Erik rolls to a stop, and see the faint remnants of a hidden dirt drive. It's been crowded over by deadfall and shrubbery, to the point where it almost seems to disappear underneath them. Brackish milkweed pods nod their one-eyed tentacles in the faint breeze, a few bits of unidentifiable litter sticking wetly to the surrounding grass. Finding a suitable place within the first line of trees, he parks and pulls the bike out of view. The road is the farthest thing from busy, but he still employs the cable-lock. Helmet hooked onto the seat, saddlebag ( _not_ a man-purse-- thank you, Magda) slung up on his shoulder; apparently he really does intend to make as much of an ass of himself as possible. At least there's no one around to see him do it. It's barely a consideration, truth be told. Everything around him feels at once hazy and hyper-real, as if filtered through much more than just the shade of his sunglasses. 

A few meters ahead, he can see a suspiciously geometrical shape covered in kudzu. That particular plant can feast on artificial structures too and, sure enough, it's the pillar of a dilapidated brick wall. It looks like someone made a pretty good go at knocking the rest of it down. Between the scant height of the remaining foundation and the pile of deadfall, it's easy to miss. Sizing up points of ingress, Erik finds a relatively stable area to climb over. His combat boots are more than equal to the challenge, but his left ankle flashes out a little pain-flare of warning. Whatever this was, it definitely was not a main entrance. Some sort of gardner's road or delivery entrance, most likely. Lehnsherr has had few external glimpses of The House (capitals most definitely appropriate) in his dreams, but it doesn't take much to realize the place is huge. Figment of his imagination or no, it could easily qualify as a castle. 

Instead of being revitalized by this find, Erik's little 'quest' only seems more foolish. All this bramble and bracken, with a sought-after manor house (and it's even more ardently desired inhabitant) hinted at beyond is all a little too 'Briar Rose' for him. The gay version, obviously. (And Magda, being Magda, really had furnished Erik with a book of adult fairytale retellings for one birthday or another. Revenge, she said, for whining about the rom-coms she liked to watch.) 

  
_'What, exactly, is your thought process here?'_ Lehnsherr asks himself. _'Walk me through this, genius.'_

Suppose, in fantastic defiance of rational existence, there _is_ a house. Does he think Charles is going to be inside, playing the role of beautiful sleeping prince? Handsome is also an appropriate term, if you want to get gendered about it, But 'beautiful' is the adjective you use for works of art, treasures, and precious things-- so beautiful is what Erik will stick with. Regardless of semantics, all the expectations he's very carefully trying not to have are all far too picturesque. Nothing in this universe is easy or free; he's bright enough to have picked that up from his own life, and smart enough to know he's damned lucky to have been born in this where and when. First world problems, baby. Finding a Charles who is solid and real but possessed of no recognition, or finding a cold slab with words engraved… No. 

  
The degree to which he has become enamored with this dream man is distressing, and would be even if the professor were just someone Lehnsherr happened to be dating in a more conventional sense. He doesn't know _how_ he would have met such a man in mundane life, for his dreams are varied enough to have shown him more than one of Xavier's unfathomably excited-- and distressingly endearing-- impromptu lectures on horizontal gene transfer or the possibility of amino acids surviving in space. The point still stands; Erik's few lovers have all complained along the same theme. He's not 'emotionally available', he's not 'invested', and he won't open up. Magda knows he cares for her greatly, but even she has said he isn't "there" enough. 

"I'm right here," he'd protested the last time they'd tried formally dating. He'd rolled his eyes, hoping the literalism might make her laugh, or at least prompt her to make fun of him.  
Instead, she'd been thoughtful, almost solemn. "No, you're not. At least not entirely. It's like a large part of you is inaccessible, or… already belongs to someone else."  
Now he and Magda are just close friends, who sleep together on rare occasion more for comfort than out of any real passion. 

The intensity of his feelings for Charles, the natural affinity between them, disturbs Erik _within_ the dreams, as well as in waking life-- though often for different reasons. Always, even in the deepest moments of intimacy with the younger man, Lehnsherr feels a sense of impending change, even disaster. He knows the tender cord will break, and that the breaking will probably kill what little capacity for feeling he has left. Charles is worth it-- a 'pearl beyond price'. But, like a pearl, he is far too easily damaged. Intellectually brilliant, exasperatingly obtuse; his optimism and capacity for belief are as potentially fatal as they are wonderful. Xavier must know what type of man-- _'corpse-pilfered monstrosity'_ , Erik's dream-self thinks-- he has taken into his bed. To whom he gives not only his body, but genuine tenderness. Eventually he will be shown, _forced_ to acknowledge and understand. Their ethical debates will be theoretical no longer, and Lehnsherr will be left with only torturous memories and a persistent devotion that might actually be love. 

  
The reasons behind some of his dream-self's behavior are not always clear upon waking. Some of the sentiments have images attached to them, others a potential for terror too overwhelming to endure in anything other than mere hints. The waking Erik _has_ killed, in his capacity as a soldier, and does at times feel a little conflicted about it. He's not sure he's a worthwhile person, but he's pretty sure he doesn't think of himself as a monster. 

_(Then he thinks of the letter he wrote to that drunk driver, when the worthless piece of breathing meat finally ran out of appeals on death row:  
"Ten years is a long time to wait to get justice for my mother. I'm not sure something as easy as lethal injection is even a place to start-- not for someone who killed two other people, for someone who  left her lying there. So enjoy your first while in Hell. Because when I get there, I'll take care of the really appropriate vengeance myself.")_

Well then. 

  


The trees aren't growing close enough to truly impede Erik's progress, but it's slow going anyway. The recent rains and general spring thaw have made the ground a thick morass of mud, broken branches, and rotten leaves. What really complicates his footing are the occasional rocks and broken bricks camouflaged in the undergrowth. His hip is starting to complain loudly by the time he glimpses any true indication that there may in fact be a goal at the end of this trek. 

The house would be breath-taking, if Erik wasn't expecting it. 

_("Honestly, Charles, however did you survive growing up in such hardship?")_

But, in spite of all his careful logic and emotional bulwark, he's been waiting for this all along. It feels right that it should be here-- ridiculous buttresses, pseudo-barbicans and all. Lensherr has never felt particularly attached to any one physical location-- not the early apartment of his childhood in New York City, or the neat little slice of suburbia that housed his adolescence in White Plains. In the Army, home was where your shit was, and that could be as simple as your sidearm, MREs and gear. 'Home' is a word he employs (currently for the little post-war saltbox he's renting) because everyone does. It doesn't have a particular meaning, though, and he never waxes poetic or gets sick over it. 

Right now, though… he has this perfect and overwhelming nostalgia he can't even begin to explain. His heart actually swells. 

He thinks, _'We were happy here.'_

  


_"And every time you come back,"_ says his own voice, somehow definitely external. _"It gets harder to leave."_

Erik actually shudders in shock and dismay, astonished by the _otherness_ of the thought-- the cold, pragmatic tone that only does a fair job of hiding the wistfulness underneath. His own voice, and yet clearly **not** his-- not completely. He's heard it before, in his dreams, but the logic of somnolence usually lets it slip by. This clarity, the sense of it being a thought somehow broadcast into his brain… that is completely new. 

"You're stepping on my line, man," Lehnsherr says aloud, mostly to make sure his own voice really _is_ still his own. It sounds just as it should. You can't hear your own accent, of course, but you can definitely perceive what (to you) is the lack of one. The other voice-- the cadences are off, the handling of the vowels. The grammar is perfect, confident, but the faintest hint of some other mother tongue remains. In a way, it's too precise; like that of a linguist who mastered syntax before sound. 

This same voice speaks without Erik's conscious will within his nighttime visions. It's a lot creepier when it happens in waking life. He tries to tell himself it was some sort of auditory hallucination, the way his mind sometimes replays snatches of those sleeping scenes when he gets a little prickle of deja vu. Stupid stuff; a live band playing 'Palisades Park' at an outdoor bistro, the model submarine on his ex-Navy supervisor's desk, the brief glimpse of a blond woman in a faux-mink coat. The chess board he'd bought from an antique store, all because its knights had that same exaggerated 'S' profile that Charles' set did. At times like that, he feels like his life is overlapping with something far larger-- as though he's in a stage play and has forgotten not just the lines, but the entire plot. When he calls for his dear one in his dreams, he says 'Chah-rles', not ' _Char_ -les'. It's not the same wide vowel of Xavier's own definitely British accent, but it is most assuredly not the Americanized pronunciation Erik would use when saying it. Assuming he dared to speak the name aloud, which he has not-- it has assumed such a talismanic quality. 

  


For a few minutes, Erik just stands at the inner edge of the woods, staring up at the house-- the _mansion_ \-- with only the beginning murmurs of an agonized chorus in his hip by which to orient himself. He feels unfathomably lost within his own consciousness. At the same time, it is as though parting clouds have, for the first time, allowed a glimpse of the guiding North Star. 

Weeds are firmly entrenched in the grass and shrubbery (what may, in fact, be rosebushes), but the blurred outline of manicured lawns and well-kept gardens has not been completely erased. The terraces have their own detritus of leaves blown into stairwells and corners, but they are unmolested by material damage or litter, and Lehnsherr can clearly see the path leading round to the front of the house. In a way, he is afraid to move, as if everything before him is a mirage. He actually saw one or two of those in Iraq-- it's amazing what the mind will fill in for the eye. He's having a hard time getting a strategic read on the place too, something he never likes. The variables don't jive. While his survey is by no means complete, Lehnsherr has yet to see a single sign booming 'NO TRESPASSING', 'PRIVATE', or 'CONDEMNED' in officious all caps. The whole area is remarkably free of the evidence usually left when enterprising teens find an unused and isolated abode. Yet the windows are all dark-- dirty but unbroken-- and one side of the house is so entangled by vines it seems the plants may actually have begun to hold the bricks together rather than the mortar. 

Erik thinks again of all the the fears he left unconsidered, too busy clinging to what he'd felt was 'proper' cynicism. Is this the home of an eccentric recluse, or some sort of haunted house? What if Charles _is_ here, but doesn't recognize Erik? Those blue eyes might gaze at him politely but without real concern, cutting almost as deeply as resentment would.  
_(And you deserve his resentment, oh Charles, your poor legs… why didn't you help him, what's the matter with you?)_

  


The summation of all this mental tail-casing, Lehnsherr thinks as he stares meaningfully at the house, is that Charles doesn't feel like a dream, a phantom, or a psychotic delusion. The dreams don't come every night but, with three or four a week for two years, a total of 325 is actually a conservative estimate. Almost an entire year on lived over alternately, behind his closed eyelids-- like the old double exposures you used to see on actual camera film. At first he'd kept mum because he preferred them to the nightmares (and night-terrors) that came from his real wartime experiences in general, and the marketplace bombing in particular. Then he'd kept his mouth shut for fear he was going crazy: there's no such thing as doctor-patient confidentiality in the Army. Finally, and most difficult of all to reconcile, he'd become attached to them… had begun to look forward to them, in a way. 

To Erik, Charles Xavier is a real person; someone with whom he's shared both the extraordinary and the mundane. A part of his life-- mirrored and fractured though that existence might seem. He knows the other man with a natural sympathy, intensity, and attention to detail unparalleled in any of his other relationships. He knows Charles is a professor, even though his friend is relatively young (younger than himself, is what he thinks within the dreams). Charles is a scientist-- genetics mostly, but he has by no means pigeonholed his brilliance. He's ridiculously well-read, a fierce and serene chess opponent, and can go from arguing political theory to rhapsodizing about the finer qualities of Tokay or Vat 69 without missing a beat. He's a graceful, powerful swimmer, and absolutely shit at cards (a fact the sleeping Erik finds doubly amusing, for some reason). He's ticklish behind the knees, but not under the armpits, and a surprisingly tenacious opponent in the few instances where playful wrestling becomes a prelude to sex itself. And, if Lehnsherr massages or kisses at the base of his skull, he melts like gold at the heart of a volcano. While he doesn't smoke often, he's not above helping himself to a drag off one of the older man's occasional indulgences, which is usually a prelude to felatio. Charles loves pineapple, protests violently when Erik picks him up to set the professor on his lap, and seems to think there's no such thing as too many blankets on the bed. While he has lips the sort of cherry color that ought to be outlawed, what Erik really loves are his eyes, and his hands. Long, elegant fingers, yes-- but he's particularly fond of the articulation of the wrists, where Charles' pulse pounds sweet in Lehnsherr's firm hold and bone-china skin reveals delicate traceries of indigo. 

Men-- and women-- in the tender snares of lust or affection have thrown away far more for far less, Erik knows. If he's allowed these strange experiences to continue unchecked during his physical recovery, what of it? He defies anyone to tell him Charles isn't worth the loss of a little (and entirely theoretical, anyway) sanity. Mama used to talk about little blessings, the ones no one could take a way from you because they were small enough to carry close to your heart… easy to conceal. 

It isn't an escape or a magic cure-all. He still has all the emotional and psychological consequences of PTSD to deal with, all the feelings and symptoms and inability to switch _off_ that have been his struggle since he got back stateside. He still suffers from insomnia, and it is always a roll of the dice to see what those few hours of sleep he does manage to snatch will bring. Moreover, not all of what Erik secretly thinks of as the "Charles Dreams" are good. 

  
Presently, Erik suppresses a shudder, eyes searching out every dark and undreaming window set above the massive gardens. He'd let caution win the day, putting off the excursion to Westchester until the burning curiosity was white-hot… he may, in fact, have been wasting precious time. Two dream scenarios in particular distress him. First, The Beach (capitals most definitely necessary), has only reoccured once or twice since Landstuhl, and it always leaves Lehnsherr with a viscus despair so deep and permeating it nearly makes his real problems seem infinitely preferable. The other was a one-hit wonder, so bizarre he hasn't even labeled it, but Erik thinks he would endure it a dozen times over if those night visions would just _come back_. After that little horror-show-- the one in which Charles was trapped by some sort of industrial debris, the one in which Erik could not make his body go to the other man's aid, the one with the fucking _robots_ \-- the dreams had stopped altogether. 

Nothing, nada. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programing of disjointed nonsense and/or Erik's night terrors. 

_'And yet you waited,'_ he thinks, disgusted. Standing in the impressive shadow of the decidedly tangible house, all his logical rationalizations seem like dew in the desert. So small as to be negligible, and disappearing just as fast. ' _What if_ …' 

  


Dithering about unknowns isn't going to help anything. You work with the data you have, and remain ready to adapt as the situation demands. Evolve or die, as the dear ol' Lieutenant used to say. A tongue of angry flame licks along Erik's insides-- self-censure for hesitating, for getting bogged down in these questions at all. Readjusting his hold on the saddlebag, Lehnsherr makes his way across the grass, moving unerringly through maze of greenery. His instincts don't fail him; he rounds the corner to find a paved drive spilling away from a great stone porch (complete with lions, for the love of all that's good and holy) and main facade. At the other end of the drive is the gated entrance one would expect from any good movie set or illustration. It's hard to tell just how overgrown it might be from here, or if it has a lock. The last wouldn't matter-- Erik has never met a lock he couldn't sweet-talk, but he doesn't know if he'd have been able to spot the point of ingress even if he had driven on. The gate itself is cyclopean; iron, embellished with swirls and curves along the top and sides. At its crown, the various designs merge to form a circle, enclosing what is quite clearly an 'X'. 

_'X for Xavier,'_ Erik thinks. He has the sudden and utterly uncharacteristic urge to run, to turn around and let the uncertainty and pain and the cold press of nightmare strangle him slowly, back in what he thinks of as his 'real life'. He's running on empty, living on borrowed time, skating on thin ice-- or whatever stupid cliche you want to use. X for Xavier, yes, but 'X' also marks the spot. That doesn't lead, as it naturally would, to thoughts of buried treasure, or even buried corpses. Instead, he's thinking of his brief experiment with oil painting (dry media, Erik has discovered, is far more cooperative with him), and of the pallet knife. It's one thing if little flecks of texture peel off, in all those minor jarring moments where deja vu seems to make life double. Annoying, disconcerting, and in no way conducive to his longevity. It's another thing altogether to go and deliberately scrape the paint away. He has this sudden horrible feeling there's an image underneath this life he's living… another painting entirely. 

He thinks of that other-Erik's voice, the one with the faintest trace of an accent. He starts to itch at his left forearm through his jacket, and stops himself. With a sick feeling, he pushes back the leather and shift cuff to gaze on the skin there. A relieved laugh wants to escape his throat, but his mouth is dry and he can't seem to get any air. It's just a scar, deep and predictably uncomely, but healed over with smooth pinkish tissue in the two years since it was inflicted. Another souvenir from the marketplace, but it's never bothered him. He'd trade ten more merely cosmetic issues to relieve himself of the ache in his hip, in his ankle. What was he expecting to see? 

_'You're making it worse by being here,'_ says the self-appointed, internal voice of sanity.  
_'Maybe,'_ Erik acknowledges. But the house is real, it's _here_. 

  


Without thinking, he whips his head around, following the slightest hint of movement in his periphery vision. Someone at the window? The high one to the west, commanding a magnificent corner view. It looks as dark as it did-- as it probably _was_ \-- a second ago. He's working himself into a state of hyper-vigilance, he needs to take it down a notch, right **now**. 

He doesn't run from things in life, and he gets the feeling that his double-self (imagined or otherwise) doesn't either. So he's not going to turn tail now. Instead he moves forward with a game and purposeful gait towards the house, and whatever uncomfortable truths it might bring. 

  
_'Here,'_ he thinks with all the calm and sardonic distemper that has always been his armor, _'goes nothing.'_

  


.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Bizarre modern!AU that somehow suddenly veers off into a post-DoFP AU. With time-travel, obviously. And stuff.  
> Do I look like I'm in charge? Didn't think so. ^_~
> 
> Meredith's Usual Glossary/Weird Notes:  
> [+] _ha'satan_ \- Hebrew. Lit, 'the adversary'. Usually translated as Satan, or 'the devil'.  
> [+] _Ze Ma Sheyesh_ (pronounced 'zeh ma yesh')-- Hebrew/Yiddish slang; 'that's all there is', 'that's life', 'what can you do about it?'  
>  [+] "It's too late to turn back now / I believe, I believe, I believe I'm falling in love"-- lyrics from "Too Late To Turn Back Now" by Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose, released in 1972.  
> [+] 'Palisades Park' by Freddy Cannon is the song playing during one of the first scenes at the Hellfire Club, in _X-Men: First Class_. It peaked at #3 on the charts in June of 1962.  
>  [+] Horizontal gene transfer was first demonstrated in 1951, using the diphtheria virus.  
> [+] Slight smudging on the mention of panspermia. While it has a lengthy history, the mechanism behind it (i.e., amino acids surviving in space) wasn't theorized until 1974. Let's just play Jedi mind-trick.  
> [+] Charles' love of pineapple is a humble homage to the amazing [luninosity](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/), whose characterizations of Charles and Erik in a canon-yet-sexually-dynamic relationship is, hands down, the best I've ever read. Her Charles loves pineapple and, referencing another story, has occasionally used it to start revolutions. ^_~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look at me doing things in a relatively timely fashion! Wheeee! Hopefully, it was worth the wait.
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings:** Past substance abuse, and hopefully compassionate references to recovery from said. PAWS (post acute withdrawal syndrome), night-terrors, and brief suicidal ideation. Mentions of PTSD, both in canon timeline and outside of it. Dark humor; some cynical religious references. Period-appropriate homophobia.
> 
> As always, any kudos or feedback you might be kind enough to leave absolutely make my day, and leave me very much in your debt. I'd love to know what you think. <3
> 
>  **ETA:** Fixed the crappy formatting. Sorry about that!

  
  


Less than an hour later, Erik is only narrowing restraining himself from attempting to put his fist through one of the fading wood-paneled walls.  
'Here goes nothing'?  
**Nothing** is exactly what he's found.

His heart had been pounding as he mounted the stone steps, dismissing the absurd feeling that he should have brought flowers, chocolate, or wine. (Spirits, rather-- Charles favors a great many liquors above wines.) The great oak doors were locked, but the knobs were old and tarnished, worn from decades of use. A quick look in the ample, old-fashioned keyhole revealed a simple tumbler mechanism of the kind Lehnsherr knows well. The composition was brass and, while it's a reasonable assumption, the fact he was dead _certain_ is another one of those knacks he can't explain. In many ways, his early fascination with locks, auto parts and machinery is what led him to Explosive Ordinance Disposal. He jokes with Madga that he picked the MOS because it was one of the few legal ways to make a living blowing shit up, but that's not really true. First and foremost, the goal of any disposal tech is to _avoid_ the incendiary event. And, while Erik enjoys the chemistry behind napalm, C4, and other less traditional catalysts, he's always been more interested in the apparatus _itself_. Even IEDs that use cellphones contain the the columbite-tantalite ubiquitous in mobile devices. That particular dark ore contains strong traces of niobium, which is capable of producing a vibrant magnetic field. 

Brass, on the other hand, is zinc and copper. Non-magnetic, but it gets brittle with age. By now, Erik realizes he wasn't quite in his right mind as he stood there on the porch-- after all, you should at least knock before you start jiggling the door handle. Also, breaking and entering is generally frowned upon by the better class of people; the little Mama-voice in the back of his mind had strongly scolded that she _knew_ he knew better. 

He wasn't thinking about that, though. His mind's eye, the whole of his will, had been consumed by the lock; the way he visualized it, how he knew the tumbler wasn't pure brass. He twisted with abrupt strength once hard right, then back left. The catch blocked and held, but with the faintest of scrapings.

"Come on, sweetheart," Lehnsherr had murmured, "You're almost there. Give it up, baby--" Once more, and this time he held the pressure, envisioning the worn metal slipping just a little right…  
**There.**

 

Fighting back a ridiculous smile, he'd paused briefly to see if anyone had been drawn by the commotion. He hadn't quite been able to stop himself from running his free hand through his hair in a vain attempt to make himself look presentable. Now he's standing on the second floor landing of a completely vacant architectural monstrosity, with no one to judge his appearance but a few drifting motes of dust, and the clusters of flowers in the central stained glass window. They're red, these flat glass suggestions of blossoms, with distressingly watchful discs of black tile that look like the eyes of dead and un-dreaming gods. Morbid _and_ florid- he's batting a thousand for sure today. Those same mute shards of color are also incongruously clean. From here, he has a good view of the intermediate landing where the undamaged 'Y' shaped staircases merge under a spotless chandelier. 

 

The rage in him is expansive and overwhelming, exacerbated by every illogical detail. The emotion seems too big for his body, as if the force will burst his capillaries, loosening muscle and sinew from bone. The Doc blames the majority of his sudden, violent rage on PTSD and reintegration, but Lehnsherr knows he's _always_ had a temper. He runs hot, like his father; it's amazing they didn't kill each other after Mama died. She had a team of stubborn mules, she'd said-- all she needed was a harness and carriage. Though Erik was twelve when he lost her

_( allowed her to be killed-- useless, useless…)_

he still owes a great deal of his self-control to Edie's patient intervention. With a temper like his, she said, you couldn't afford to have anything but a long fuse. Boys-- particularly adolescent boys fermenting in their own hormones-- got angry, and she understood that. _'But G-d put us here to work on our faults,'_ she'd say, bending to give him a kiss he was always quick to scrub at. She took him to football practice, wrestling, karate, and even let him try skateboarding. All of this to find something he liked that would channel the confusing, negative morass propelling him quickly out of prepubescence. Karate was alright (he switched to Tae Kwan Do in high school), but he _loved_ lacrosse. Sport, strategy, and an excuse to run around clashing nets on big metal sticks? It was brilliant. He'd still been plenty pissed off at the world, especially after Mama died. But, for the most part, he was able to recognize that letting blind rage get its hooks in him more often resulted in most of the hurt landing on himself. The Army took care of the rest, and then made it worse. The absolute fury he feels now starts out red, like those stupid overly-stylized flowers, but it quickly descends into utter black. 

 

_("Kleiner Erik Lehnsherr, so that is the key to your power…"  
Shut up, you phantom fuckwad, I don't even know who you are!)_

He puts his fists to his ears, raking nails against the sides of his face. As if in response, his brain switches to and all-too-vivid sensory image of the marketplace. That day-- 

_(The day is bright and dusty, but not 'hot' in the way most people imagine the Middle East. Oh no, this is heat beyond the implications of the English word. 'Smelting', 'stifling', you could try them all-- why not save time and stick your head in an oven? In college, Erik remembers reading that some Inuit languages have over fifty words for 'snow'. In this same way, someone could spend a lifetime organizing the gradations of temperature-induced misery in Iraq._

_The village is just a cluster of buildings, a well, and a cross-roads. It's not even enough to merit an official name on the map, but it seems as if every damn person in town is out today. Women in _hijabs_ and variations on traditional garb, men in western clothes, children in an odd mix of hand-me-downs and cartoony t-shirts. Old cars, older camels; the rhythm of sand and barter. _

_Newcomb says, "Where the fuck is the translator?"_

_But Erik is looking at the cellphone in its ludicrous panda case, LED screen flashing a count-down from where it's strapped to a parcel in the back of an ass-old GMC.  
He says--)_

"They're a luxury, not a requirement. If you follow the fucking protocol, we can do this without one." 

__

__Ah. That's out loud-- that's in the real world. To test this theory, Lehnsherr lets loose with an inarticulate scream of rage and frustration. Each ripple of sound makes his vocal chords ache, but it banishes the memories. Real, imagined, and everything in-between._ _

__There's a crash nearby. Whirling around quickly, Erik glares suspiciously at the dim corridor beyond, which still echoes with the sound of his own voice. This house doesn't make sense, he keeps coming back to that. There's no furniture-- and oh, he went from room to room, _knowing_ where things should properly be. He'd gone to the room his mind was sure belonged to Charles and then (after bitter disappointment) the one they'd nominally told the others Erik was sleeping in. And maybe the lack of habitable luxuries would make sense if the house really seemed as abandoned as it does on the outside. However, that same empty interior is clear not just of dust and cobwebs, but of vandalism and animal leavings. Not to mention the damage that can be caused by said critters, or even just the changing seasons themselves. The more absence he finds, the more _presence_ is argued. He's primed now, to take on whatever hand keeps this place hollow and spotless. Hell, in this state he'd take on chain-rattling phantoms, relentlessly-organized ghosts, or demons from the very bowels of Gehenna. Possibly all three at once. _ _

__There must be something here_ _

_(oh, no-- nobody home. nobody at all but us chickens)_

__with Erik, because the sound he heard was cased by _every single one_ of the wall-mounted candlesticks falling on the wood floor. All of the electric flambeaux, set at neat intervals in the paneled walls, have just disconnected from their mountings as if they'd all been simultaneously sliced with a laser. A wave of nausea hits Erik, rather than the expected fear. If it were just one, he could explain it away. In spite of the mysterious upkeep, maybe one of the fixtures had been dangling by a wire ages before he arrived. A little disturbance, and it gave up the ghost-- ha ha. He has what he considers a health capacity for rationalizing (after all, it's how most people navigate in the world), but there's not a damned sensible reason Erik can think of for all twelve faux-candle lights falling at once. _ _

__He stops himself from calling out a truly idiotic 'hello'. After all, he certainly has enough kitschy horror films on his Netflix account to know that _never_ ends well. Bending towards the closest piece, Erik finds the metal is still faintly warm in his hand when he picks it up. It looks like the joint of the candelabra was yanked off by hot tongs._ _

_(Or by a hand. Just a strong hand, a muscle, that can rip into metal the way most people shred paper. Barely any conscious effort at all.)_

__

He decides to ignore this whispering under-thought, along with all twelve light fixtures, mostly because there is just too much weird shit in his life already. He's in a maximum overdrive of the unexplained and, if he looks down, he's going to drop every one of the plates he's spinning. It really is like spinning, too-- a spiral so large you think you're following a straight path, even as it draws you inevitably towards some center truth. You never realize you're dizzy and lost until it's too late. If he keeps following that deceptive slope, he's going to have to touch on some of the quirky little happenings that have followed him back into waking life. Like how he's had to buy ceramic knives, because somehow he'll wake up to find his good steel ones all over the floor in the kitchen, and the last thing he needs is the landlady getting on him about scratching up the good tile. He puts his car and motorcycle keys in the freezer at night, and not just because sleep-walking is a common side effect of Ambien. He's made pasta in his sleep (and boy wasn't _that_ an adventure), so he definitely wants to make sure the keys aren't somewhere within the reach of muscle-memory. But he's also had to replace one car and two house keys already, because he's found them melted on his dresser or, oddly enough, in his medicine cabinet. Prescription sleep aids are trippy enough on their own, and Erik knows he's being irresponsible by mixing them with alcohol, but sleep-deprivation can be its own special hell. That last factor at least explains away any rippling metal tools, hangers, and/or chair legs he thinks he sees at night. 

Of course, it's the world behind his closed eye-lids that holds the especially irrational elements. Robots, fleets of missiles, submarines.  
( _Coins and barbed wire._ )  
Bullets, which he handles easily, and then THE BULLET-- the all-important bullet-- at which he failed.  
_'Shoot me, Charles. Point blank. You know I can stop it,'_ he'd said, so cocky before that abysmal misstep. The waking Erik doesn't know of any universe in which that makes sense. 

__

Leaning against the wall, Lehnsherr tosses the fixture away in disgust. It strikes the floor of the hallway with a garish, jarring clatter. The oppressive silence of the house seems to swallow up the sound, making it an unsatisfactory outlet for the embers of Erik's fury. Who is he mad at, exactly? Charles, for being the kind of person who only exists in dreams, and then refusing to materialize in a world Lehnsherr knows is going to hell in the express lane? Is he mad at the Universe and its G-d, who may be dead, insane, or utterly disinterested-- anything but invested in answering the prayers of aimless wanderers like Edie Lehnsherr's little boy? Maybe all of the above, but his temper tantrum isn't accomplishing anything. It also comes with a nice little pang of guilt for scratching up what is clearly a very expensive wood floor. So much for the house not being vandalized. 

__

He rakes a hand through his hair, feeling drained. He is no longer overwhelmed by the sense of  
_(his powers)_  
a presence, but the emptiness of the house does seem like a thin veneer. He goes back to the idea of a stage setting-- that sense of hushed expectancy when the house-lights go up and the narrative prepares to resume. The whole building seems like a nexus of potentiality, but Erik couldn't articulate it to save his life. Briefly, he tries to envision going home; crashing on his futon, getting up in time for his evening seminar on Basic Structural Design. There's a paper due tonight (he's finished it already, but he'll give it a final once-over), and he has left-over lasagna in the 'fridge. No work tomorrow, which means a whole day during which he will have to occupy himself. There's Netflix, the busted Camaro, his drawings. He has sketchbooks full of practice figure studies and portraiture, interspersed with the occasional still-life or building design. He has more stacks filled with careful representations of Magda or acquaintances at work-- painstaking practice. He's been rehearsing, working his way up, because what he wants to draw is _Charles_ , and that has to be done right. So far, he's only managed rough sketches of Xavier from behind-- looking out the window, gazing into the fire, sitting in front of the Washington Monument. There's a pad of paper in his saddlebag right now, along with graphite pencils, erasers, and all the soft blue hues he likes to use for shading. 

__The thought of just going home is depressing, like having thrown a battle in the first five minutes when you're the one who had the high ground. All of those things-- drawing, striving for A's, mustering the control to be a good little worker bee-- seem impossible and far away. Somehow, he has failed Charles, he hasn't _found_ the other man. If the house is here, why not the owner, the professor who dreamed of turing the maze of childhood loneliness into a haven and a school? _ _

__'One last sweep,' he tells himself. He shoulders the bag again, resisting the potent temptation to trying drawing _here_ , as if the 'aura' of the place will help somehow. That's post-Victorian seance crap, right up there with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his fairies. He supposes he shouldn't knock it; people will believe whatever they need to in order to hold on.  
"Still," he says ruefully, keeping his voice respectfully hushed, "I'd make a lousy Pygmalion."_ _

__

__He ends up back in Charles' room, of course. Even without the furniture, he still recognizes details that argue against delusion or mental illness. The walls are still pale blue above the mahogany wainscoting, and the room is at the corner of the house. In fact, it's the one he was looking at from the lawn, and the windows command an amazing view of the property. One of the portals has a nice little window-seat underneath, and a band of stained glass in the transom pane. Erik likes this one much better; just a series of smooth, organically curved sections in shades of blue and gold, hallmarks of by-gone art nouveau._ _

_'I stood there at that window',_ he thinks. _'Charles and I shared this room-- we pretended I was at the other end of the hall, but we barely even turned down the bed. I'd slip down here to be with him, because Charles couldn't sneak to save his life. I couldn't surprise him, though. Somehow…'_ he struggles for the concept, but it evaporates from the train of thought. _'Somehow he knew, and he'd wait-- arrange himself. He was a sensualist of baudelairean order under those tweed vests and soft sweaters. I'd have to hunt him out under the blankets, kick him out of bed in the morning to go run with--'_

It's like struggling for the quadratic equation years after you've gotten out of high school. I _know_ I know this.  
"Harry?" he tries aloud. "Horace… Henry…" There was a nickname, too. Was it Sulley? No, that was the hairy blue monster from that cutesy little movie Madga's nephew liked. He shakes his head, and then tilts it as if listening. In many ways, he wishes there _were_ a few artifacts in the room. The bed frame, maybe; that gothic monstrosity of pure black wood, so he could run his hand along it, in lieu of the far more tempting curve of Charles' ass. Not so much a bed as a black hole of quilts and linen, the sort of tall antique you needed a step-stool to reach. That first night, he'd turned up his nose and told Charles it was a very nice boat. Xavier had replied that his real criticism lie in the fact it had so few useful metal components.  
They'd made do, never the less. 

__

__Despite the fact he's alone and in no way a stranger to sex, Erik finds himself blushing. Before all of this, he'd always considered himself accepting but over-all pretty vanilla in the bedroom. He and Madga certainly never did anything fancy. They'd tried once, when she'd found a pair of black thigh-high 'fuck me' boots, but it ended up seeming silly and they'd both laughed too hard to really get in the mood. In college, he'd known a couple of guys who wanted to try things; one wanted to tie Erik up (he obliged, but was unimpressed), and another wanted to be spanked. Take it or leave it, pretty much-- even Lehnsherr's porn was pretty tame._ _

__That sex was a part of those dreams involving Charles seemed natural, and comforting in a lot of ways. Hell, the first time he'd woken up with a hard-on in the hospital, he'd just been thrilled that all the plumbing still worked. But, while nothing he did with Charles was gross or distressing, it definitely got a little kinky as time went on. Liberal sex values or no, the streak of possessiveness and dominance Charles inspired in him had come as a complete surprise to Erik. In particular, he remembers some decorative little accent from a hotel room-- maybe an ashtray, or a candlestick like the ones out in the hall. Physics forbade the easy loop he'd made of it, neatly but firmly capturing the wrists of his friend and lover, leaving Xavier trussed up on the bed in all his bare and blushing glory. Being tied up like that-- tied up by Erik, in things that intrinsically belonged to Erik-- did something to Charles. Blue eyes languorous, his kisses became erotically clinging, and his body arched into every touch like an instrument made for Lehnsherr's hand. It gave Erik all the time in the world to glut himself on that sweet and well-loved form. Not because the younger man had the patience for it, but because he had willingly given up the choice._ _

__

Presently, Erik clears his throat, readjusting and trying to segue before such thoughts find a physical manifestation. It seems kind of rude to be perv-ing in someone else's room, even if you seem to have once had an invitation inside. The thing he doesn't get is the over-all air of secrecy. In waking life, Erik's never really 'come out' to anyone. Even before the Army, he really didn't consider it anyone else's business. And, by the time such things became germane, Erik had no intention of trying that discussion with his father without a miracle or Mama to referee. He doesn't think there's any more of a moral aspect to it than there is with straight sex. If everyone is consenting, safe, and considerate, then what's the big deal? If G-d has time to worry about the goings-on in every bedroom on the planet, then humanity was seriously screwed. Cute, cheap pun. 

The dreaming Erik doesn't seem to feel any shame over his proclivities, but there's definitely a clandestine pall that thickens at times. He has no respect for  
_(human)_  
laws written by men who, by the very nature of politicians, are very likely hypocrites in one way or another. Charles doesn't seem embarrassed or guilty; he just tends to depend on a tit-for-tat propriety. He certainly never hides his great regard for Erik, or takes steps to moderate his physicality. It's just not something the others really need to know. 

He's never entirely clear on this larger group, in the dreams, even more so because he sometimes thinks of them as 'the children'. It's as if the data is there in the deeper reaches of his alter-ego's mind but, because they are not surface thoughts, he can't quite grab hold of them. Charles is the focus of all these strange night narratives. Lehnsherr has the impression that he cares about these others, but Charles is why he stays. 

__

_("Erik!" Charles smiling at him, reclining with easy grace in some rigorously generic office. "You decided to stay."_

_Has anyone ever smiled at Erik Lehnsherr, the little monster on a choke-chain, like that before? No, never-- a smile like that is divine, obscene. The kind of privilege people start wars over. Somehow, Erik manages to nod with curt insouciance, as if to say 'Well, I'm here. For now.' Does Charles smile at people, at everyone like that? Not right now, at least; the younger man's expression has become calm, politic. He's very firmly agreeing with something Lehnsherr himself just said ('no suits'?), handling the protests of the utterly forgettable man behind the desk with practiced elegance._

_'He's used to getting what he wants,' Erik thinks, trying to muster resentment towards the young professor. He's well-bred, he's beautiful; flash that smile, flex that surprising will, and there can't be many blockades that stand for long. Xavier is exactly the sort of boy Erik should hate, but he can't quite make the feeling stick._

_Charles continues to insist on smiling at him, on watching him as if he is someone to be valued rather than hated and feared. He *touches* Lehnsherr; a brief press at the elbow, a companionable bump of the shoulders, a friendly clap on the back. It's never invasive, but it makes the older man hyperaware. Each incident sends a wave of warmth through him more inexplicable and delicious than the most exotic drug. Xavier is open and inviting-- he asks for Erik's opinion and listens with genuine interest, even when he doesn't agree. And every morning-- in the dingy cafeteria, from his repose in the other twin bed, and eventually right in Lehnsherr's arms-- Charles always seems delighted that Erik has stayed.)_  


  
_'Except that's a lie, and you know it,'_ Erik thinks at this other, sterner version of himself. He has no idea how much time has passed; he's seated on the widow-seat, and it's only the effort of not speaking that last accusation aloud that really startled him back to reality. His shoulders droop, hands coming to rest limply in his lap. Sunlight pours through the colored glass, filling his empty hands with a king's ransom in ephemeral jewels. Yes, Charles was always happy to see him. But no, Erik didn't stay, not really. Not when it counted. 

_('I want you by my side.')_

He doesn't know exactly how he fucked it up. The 'Beach Dreams' are always a remorseless kaleidoscope of too-vibrant color, pain, rage, and a weird silence in his head that screams 'he's dead, you finally killed him, did I really manage to kill him, is he honestly and truly dead?'. Sometimes he thinks that must be some sort of weird subconscious expression, a fantasy in which he does get to kill the bastard who let his mother die. 

( _There was no 'let' about it. "Move the coin, or---")_

"Or nothing. I don't know what the hell you're talking about." He rakes his nails along his scalp again, not sure which is worse-- the real memories of heat and screams and burning flesh, or the dream ones filled with cold and ash and gunfire. 

  


He's all over the place today, fucked to hell and gone and talking to himself to boot. What's one more crazy person in a world full of lunatic assholes? That no longer even seems like a remote possibility, though. Even if he hasn't found anything definitive, Erik now _knows_ Charles is real, the same way he knows the Earth revolves around the sun. You can't see it, of course, and in all likelihood you'll never experience it for yourself, but it's true all the same. However, if he accepts Charles as a cornerstone fact, there are a few corollary variables that must be accepted as well. Everything in life comes with a price. 

Silence is even more imperative now than when it was just his mental health and relative liberty at risk. If his experiences at Landstuhl have taught him anything, it is that he's already on someone's radar. Oh, he's not so arrogant as to think he's a high priority. In fact, by now he may have been dismissed as uninteresting despite the fact his survival flew in the face of logic and blast theory. He'd been questioned intensely both during his recovery and prior to his official release from service, and the only high card he'd held was that he genuinely didn't _know_ what had happened. That made him hard to trip up when it came to cross examination, but it didn't spare him from the seemingly millions of tests, samples, x-rays, and other analyses he'd been forced to patiently endure. Pee in this cup, yes we still need one more blood sample, turn you head and cough. The medical version of 'wham, bam, thank you Ma'am'. All healthy paranoia aside, he's probably no more monitored than anyone else is these days, but if he does start behaving oddly or snooping near some particular hornet's nest, he might draw attention again. One of his first concessions to this whole mess had been to Google 'Charles Francis Xavier'. There were a whole slew of hits-- eighteen pages worth, including some on Francis Xavier, the saint-- but nothing even remotely like what he was looking for. He's found the house, thus pretty much dedicating himself to this path, but where does he go from here? 

He sighs, leaning against the window frame and tilting his head back, blowing a few stray strands of hair out of his face. Magda keeps threatening to cut it while he sleeps but, after years of regulation follicle length and policing of facial hair, Erik is willing to fight her off. The solidity of the house is all around him, enclosing, a piece of concrete fact. Reassured, but stymied-- that's him. Insert cliches about patience, steps forward and back, or building Rome in a day here. 

Charles' voice doesn't come to him, much as he wishes it would. Whatever magic-tricks the house had been preforming with the light fixtures, the show is apparently over. No flies, dripping blood, or marbles forming an arrow to LOOK HERE. He tells himself he absolutely will not stoop to automatic writing, drawing, or Ouija boards. Banging his heals against the wooden baseboard in a childish display of boredom and frustration, he gets rather painfully to his feet and begins to stalk out of the room. He can feel the soreness seeping into his joints already, and can imagine the agony to come all too well. 

At the door, he turns back over his shoulder, eyes narrowing. His mind replays the sound of his boot-heels against the wood, and he edges just a little ways back towards the window, as if the cushion-less seat is an animal he might startle. Erik may never be the carpenter his father was, but he learned enough during their better days in the little basement workshop to recognize when a section of paneling doesn't belong. Or, in this case, has been moved. It's the section to the far left thats bothering him. It's still the original wood, and the offender was very careful when he or she pried it loose, but the grecian tooth design along the bottom is ever so slightly off. Lehnsherr might not have noticed without the hollow knock, but he can definitely see it now. 

Kneeling, he digs his swiss army knife out (don't need a concealed carry permit for _that_) out of his pocket, feeling along the wooden seam with his free hand. His hips and ankle register vehement protest, but he barely notices. No nails involved, it seems; just slats with runners for the wood to slide home. It's not meant for storage but, as hiding places go, it at least beats a box spring, portrait cubby, or underwear drawer. Maybe it's only a kid's stash spot, the way Erik used to sock things away behind the old wardrobe in his bedroom. He's careful-- mostly because he's not nearly so confident when dealing solely with wood-- but the last little bit of leverage still sends him teetering back considerably. He left ankle flares pain once more and then goes on strike, quickly landing his ass (and very unappreciative hips) on the hard wood floor. 

At first, Erik is almost crestfallen again. Even before he sets the panel aside and reaches in, he can see the only treasure this little cavity has to yield up is some kind of lurid tin box. A few puffs of air over the lid, and his kid theory is gaining credence. It's an old Flash Gordon lunch box, all zig-zagging lines and cartoonish rocketships. Flash, of course, surrounded by brisk strokes to indicate speed, and Ming the Merciless. The latter is laughing maniacally, apparently enjoying his own genius. It was all way before Lehnsherr's time, but his mom loved old black-and-white movies, and the station would sometimes run serials to fill up between time-slots. Clark Gable and the pert-breasted Jean Harlow in…  Red Earth? Red Dust? Something saucy enough that Mama covered his eyes at one point. Follow it up with toy space ships, men in tight jumpsuits and paper mache aliens, and you were good to go. Erik's tolerance for sci-fi is minimal, and he frowns at the comedic villain even as he sets to work freeing the lid. Ming was a _putz_ anyway. He was always trying carting off that dame (Erik doesn't remember her name; 'the token girl', as Magda would say with a roll of her eyes) and trying to force her to marry him. Who in the hell thought kidnapping was a decent form of courtship? 

  


When the lid is off, all stylistic narrative choices and would-be romance skills leave Erik's mind. While the tin is childish, he can see even before disturbing the arrangement that the contents are not. He remembers teasing Charles in the dreams; a vaunted academic, an _Oxford_ graduate, with pulp science fiction novels stacked in his childhood room.  Slan, The Chrysalids, More Than Human… Charles had them all, not to mention The Demolished Man and Stars My Destination. As often happened when Erik was spoiling for a fight (in earnest or just for play), Xavier did not respond as expected. Instead of a witty comeback, or even defensiveness, the only reply had been a soft murmur of, _'Well, I was lonely.'_

_'Telepaths'_ , Erik thinks presently, his mind seizing on the word as though it has some sort of ravenous, cosmic significance. He hasn't read half those books but he does know that every last one of them centers around telepaths, lost and outnumbered in a world that was to them practically blind and mute. 

That's important, somehow, but Lehnsherr isn't sure he wants to examine it just at the moment. Any feelings he retains from his dream-self in this regard are vague-- the trepidation of a predator who knows it may have found a worthy adversary, and the sort of alarmed awe as would be inspired by a nuclear sunrise. Arousal, too, which is what resonates with the waking Erik. He can't quite get a grip on it, but love-making with Charles often includes a sensation he can only describe as textural moonlight. Such silvery illumination should seem chill and bright, but this feels warm, like molten silver and diamond blush on leaves. A will that is foreign but loved (deceptively satin over its bedrock tenacity), twining with his own. 

  


While he doesn't blush this time, Erik does shake his head and force his focus back to the discovery at hand. There are books in the tin-- two of them-- but those can wait as well. On top of the tomes are items that argue against this merely being a child's treasure box. There's a man's dark red silk tie 

( _'More tea, Vicar?'_  
_'Don't mind if I do.'_ ) 

and a pair of gold cuff-links whose complicated knot design vaguely evokes the _Magen David_. A pair of very nice (if also very retro) sunglasses, and a red pocket square to match the tie. The latter is wrapped around a plain but venomously sharp straight razor, and its the only thing that keeps Erik from cutting himself on the slightly open edge. He gingerly presses the blade back into the wooden scale, holding it up in the afternoon light. It's the old fashioned kind men used to shave with-- a little too much temptation, in Erik's opinion. Yet he knows somehow that he didn't just use this on himself. Charles trusted him with it; let the other man gently nuzzle at his five o'clock shadow, and then lather that tempting jawline for a shave. Slowly, gently, deliberately possessive and erotic. That lovely but utterly masculine line of throat… dear hypothetical G-d in his metaphorical heaven! 

  
Carefully, Erik lays this layer of artifacts aside. Underneath, there are more items that, while puzzling, are also clearly objects that might evoke memories for someone. A girl's pink barrette, bakelite in the shape of a bow, complete with requisite sparkles. What might be the world's oldest tube of lipstick, and a tiny almost empty bottle of Arpege. Supporting these is a handkerchief with a plain blue border, augmented by two elaborately embroidered birds in black thread. There's a silver bird pendant, too. 

_'Ravens.'_ Erik thinks, _'Those are ravens.'_ Because that was her name, or the name her mother gave her. Such an appellation should conjure images of a pale, dark-haired girl, but he knows this Raven was blond. All gold and peach, wholesome Dick-and-Jane good looks. For some reason that grates on his nerves, though sometimes her eyes were golden…  
He can't hold onto that thought-- it's just too strange. Instead, he sets her strata of mementos next to  
_(his)_  
the man's things. That leaves the books, something loose underneath those, and what looks like a square of cardboard for lining. 

  
He quickly discovers that the volumes are actually two copies of the same novel, and he reads the title with a completely inexplicable twist of dismay, fondness, and guilt in his gut. He has no idea why this should be, for the story can't possibly mean anything to him. He has never read  The Once and Future King, though he seems to recall that it was on the list of summer reading options his freshman year of high school. Some of the other kids had dubbed it 'The Once and Future Fling' because, apparently, everyone in it was sleeping with everyone else. Odd to recall now, but his father had been surprised when Erik chose My Antonia instead-- for surely knights were far more interesting than a novel about life on the prairie? Erik had shrugged and said at least his choice was a lot shorter, but… he just really hadn't wanted to read that book. 

_'You're just projecting backwards, now,'_ Lehnsherr scolds himself sternly. _'That doesn't mean anything.'_ After all, he'd skipped over  Frankenstein too, and that certainly isn't relevant. 

The first copy isn't anything special, just the sort of old pulpy paperback you'd find in the two-dollar bin at Half Price Books. Erik thumbs through it quickly, without much interest, until he catches a glimpse of the back flyleaf. That sense of precarious dread and… _doubleness_ , which he thought had surely reached its highest glass-shattering pitch already, ratchets to an improbable degree. All this before he truly reads the inscription, because the inscription is in _his_ handwriting. There are some slight differences-- the cursive is elegant, more polished, and the loops at the bottom of the 'S's are tighter than he typically makes his own. It's close enough for government work, though. In fact, if it were brought to evidence in court, Erik would be seriously concerned about getting convicted.  
It says simply this: 

  _'My Galahad,_  
  "My good blade carves the casques of men,  
  My tough lance thrusteth sure,  
  My strength is as the strength of ten,  
  Because my heart is pure."  
   -E' 

  
Lehnsherr tries to swallow, but his throat is as dry as the streets of Fallujah at high noon. Anyone else reading those words might think them an entirely romantic gesture. There _is_ love there, that cannot be denied, but a great deal of the tenderness is grudging. A prying loose as painful paring away skin layer by minute layer. The pen that copied that stanza pressed hard into the paper, and so part of the inscription is declared by the act itself-- 'I was here, I was here, and you will not be rid of me so easily.' And Galahad? The youthful, virgin knight on his quest for the Holy Grail? Erik may never have read T.H. White's novel, but you don't get through an Art Appreciation course on the Pre-Raphaelites without developing a considerable background knowledge of Arthurian (not to mention Greek) legend. If he recalls correctly, Galahad had a reputation for being almost inhumanly perfect-- all the more so for being the pious son of the flawed Lancelot. An embodiment of moral virtue, and always portrayed as a beautiful young man, but those things made him hard to empathize with. Not to mention the fact that paragons of righteous living are no fun at parties. Whether you call them a _mensch_ or a saint, they make people feel judged (whether they're actually engaged in doing so or not), and they sometimes come off as arrogant. 

_('Is it naiveté, Charles? Or is it arrogance?')_

Embrace with one arm, twist the knife with the other. Resentful adoration, frustration, desire; conflicting drives in someone used to having clear and linear goals. _Holy shit_ \-- Erik is no expert on romance, but he's pretty sure this is a dick move.  


Once, as a small child, Erik remembers his grandmother telling Mama that it was a bad idea to keep old love letters. Eventually, she said with a decisive wag of her finger, they grew teeth. He was very young when Bubbeh was alive, but he very clearly recalls his mother sitting calmly on the sofa, green eyes flashing as she lifted a small but defiant chin. Erik knows that jerky movement well, because he inherited it from her. _'Sweet as honeysuckle,'_ his father used to say of her, _'and every inch iron underneath.'_ He has no idea what the context for Bubbeh's unsolicited advice was, but he certainly gets the point now. This is not this sort of passage one writes with a gift. 

  
_(So he does it that last night, while Charles is asleep. Somehow, the novel has become a fulcrum for their philosophical arguments-- he's bought a copy in one of those endless-cornfield states when they started debating actual passages. Now it's laying on the nightstand on his side of the bed, beside Charles' fine watch and his far more practical timepiece. The professor himself is tucked up against Erik's side, having made himself a little nest between the wall and the older man's cradling arm. No easy rest tonight for this artisan's lightning-rod, for every tense and worried thought in the house must be gathering around him. Erik strokes the dark auburn hair rhythmically, occasionally brushing a light knuckle against cheek or jaw._

_He doesn't plan to leave Charles, though tomorrow may bring all the hellfire it pleases. Whatever happens, he cannot leave his dear one unattended, not now that so much has been revealed. Anonymity is a weapon in and of itself but, thanks to Charles' 'connections', it is now also a luxury they have both lost. Lehnsherr won't wait for opportunistic wolves-- all neatly buttoned up in suits and lab coats-- to turn on Charles. His neshama will just have to come along, whether he likes it or not._

_But there are too many pieces still left in play, and he cannot stand the thought that he might be easily erased from Charles' life, after the bruises and love bites have faded.  
He knows exactly what he will write._ ) 

  
There's a coldness to those thoughts that makes the real-and-present Erik shiver, though it has nothing at all to do with temperature. No, it's the distance that bothers him, the sensation that these tender emotions themselves are odd, exotic fish darting in the crushing ocean depths. Almost shoving the book off his lap, Erik moves on quickly to the other copy. Slightly older, and much finer; bound in leather, with carefully reproduced color plates. He's not interested in the illustrations though, because this one has something written in it too. Very lightly, in pencil, at the top corner of the inside cover. A smoother, more rounded hand, with printer-style 'A's. 

  
   _Charles Xavier_. 

  
That's it, and that is all Erik needs. He's beyond needing proof-- talk about Galahad and impossible quests!-- but it's nice to have it all the same. Lehnsherr manfully resists the urge to hug the book to his chest. He does have standards, after all. Nevertheless, this belonged to Charles and Charles alone, was well-loved and read enough times to have a thumb-sized portion of the gold lining worn away. He lets a finger hover cautiously just over the inscription for fear of smudging the lead, knowing somehow that this book-- of so many hundreds of choices-- was one of the few that made trans-Atlantic trips with the Oxford hopeful, sitting comfortably on nightstands and the make-shift shelfs of windowsills in half a dozen cheap flats. Millions of miles away, metaphorically and physically-- from the chill luxury of childhood. A Charles who defined himself as student, scholar, brother and friend… but never as anyone's son. 

Erik thinks of his own departure for college; leaving a house from which the traces of his mother's presence had long since been erased, the all-too-routine and stifling quiet of the car ride with his father. They'd stood awkwardly outside his dorm after the handful of boxes had been carted upstairs, the minimal trappings of bedsheets and curtains doing little to warm the cement-block walls. With Mama gone, it seemed he and his father had forgotten how to talk to each other. They'd spent the intervening seven years dangling predicates in a thick molasses of silence, stepping around all the empty spaces she used to fill. Did Charles feel at all as Erik had, unpacking the few treasures salvaged from the strange wilderness of adolescence? That terrifying weightlessness of being your own free agent, at once so foreign and thrilling? Lehnsherr had brought with him a copy of  Beowulf marked with one or two superhero trading cards, and-- without the knowledge or permission of his father-- his mother's _magen david_ , wrapped in one of her old silk scarves. 

He's glad of this memory, because it is truly his own. Not some vague charcoal in the nightscape of his dreaming mind or the odd pirate transmission of some similar-yet-alien other, but something that makes him just Erik, the kid from White Plains. The guy who'd made a sure friend out of Magda when he leaned over in their anthropology survey and whispered, 'If I pass you a note about meeting me for coffee, are you going to deck me?' It's like coming up for a lungful of life-giving air in the middle of uncharted waters, and he takes a moment to appreciate it. To ground himself, as all his psychological and physical therapists seemed to agree was key. He's almost to the bottom of the tin.  


It's not a piece of cardboard at the bottom of the inadvertent time-capsule, but an actual LP sleeve-- one of those two-sided little 45's. The origin of the term 'B-side', if you could but dig it. There's a creepy allegory, Erik and his not-quite-identical dream brother, two sides of record.  
With dark humor, he thinks, _'Damn. No one wants to be the B track for someone else's life'_.  
The primary song on this record is, of course, 'Palisades Park'.  


_(She plays the song constantly that summer, partly because she really does like it, but also because it drives Charles up the wall. Sean, flushed on the day of his triumph, actually sings and 'boogies' with her. Raven cranks up the volume to unholy levels, and won't turn it off until every single one of them favors her with a dance.)_

  
Too easy, all the little moments and their detailed shading flowing into his mind. If he tries a little harder, Erik thinks he might be able to get all of their names. He can't concentrate on that right now, though; has, in fact, not even bothered to remove the record from the tin. He'd sensed a few loose items forcing the record and books to an angle, and they are simply these: 

A handful of hypodermic needles, and two vials of fluid labeled _CFXrestr3_. 

  


  
Lehnsherr doesn't touch them, even though the needles are safely caped and the vials themselves clearly sealed. While he may not know what they contain, he definitely now knows what all of this is. These are not mementos, not a single damned one of them. This whole damned thing is a fucking loadstone. All of the things a person wanted to get rid of-- _needed_ , maybe, to excise like a cancer-- but still couldn't bear to part with. Your very own Do-It-Yourself albatross kit. How could he have missed it, when he has one himself? That moment of empathy with Charles has heightened a thousandfold. Erik's is smaller, socked away in the back of his medicine cabinet, but it might be just as heavy. There's certainly not as much inside; just his dog-tags and his discharge papers folded into a thick paper sandwich, all on top of his final half-empty bottle of Oxy. 

The glass vials click quietly, their rest disturbed by a shudder that seems to work its way outward from Erik's sternum into every extremity. The sound is not exactly like the sound of a new morphine drip being replaced, or of pills rattling their blue-yellow promise of painlessness, but it's close. If he does pluck one up, will he smell that bitter aroma of medicine? Most people find it unpleasant, but it can still make his mouth water. 

  


Oh, he'd known he'd needed to quit-- had known for a lot longer than he'd allowed himself to understand. He's been to a few NA meetings (though he's never participated), listening to discordances of suffering that, while different from his own, are all in the same key. There's no doubting that he's been lucky; once he'd acknowledged the need to quit, he had. Not without a few stumbles, but he'd kept his job, his few remaining acquaintance/friends, and the only person who actually knew anything had happened was Magda. He has achieved, in terms of those tempting little capsules, the coveted state of recovery. Because you never recover _ed_ \-- oh, the glories of the coveted past-tense!-- you were always _recovering_. One hour, one day, one week at a time. The bitch of it is, he still wants it sometimes. A day without thinking about it is a Very Good Day indeed, and he's well aware that Ambien and alcohol are just crutches that will have to be dealt with sooner rather than later. He's more strict rationing them, 

_('Because you're very controlled about being out-of-control, dear,' Magda will often sigh.)_

but once you get a peek at the giant fucking pink elephant with its ass planted on your coffee table, you can't un-see it. The clichés are annoying and recursive because they're _true_. It took ten days for that shit to get out of his system, but it took weeks for him to stand his own smell or eat something without feeling queasy. Months before the weird yellow cast had left his perception. Hell, the first time he'd felt genuinely happy after about six months of funeral-march endurance, he almost hadn't recognized the emotion. Feeling anything other than grim determination in waking life had become foreign. That, perhaps just as much as his initial physical injury, had reinforced the notion that the continuing dreams were a sort of alternate existence. When he could fight past his own misery and actually sleep, it almost seemed more real than the confusion of physical and emotional detox. Dangerous, dangerous-- for many, as the poet said, are the deceivers.*  


He'd thought of giving the pills to Magda for safekeeping, but she isn't his fucking nanny. Erik needs to know he can resist the temptation-- that he isn't clean just because an opportunity hasn't presented itself-- and…  
_(if the time comes when he does decide to deuce out, to take the houselights down and blow good ol' Willie's 'all the world's a stage'… well, he might need them.)_  
maybe someday he'll be able to get rid of them. For now, they are a weight he carries with him and, yes, he's heard all the crap about G-d not giving you more than you could shoulder. 

"Oh, Charles," he says, uttering the syllables aloud for the first time. Despair and worry are like acid in his throat. " _Charles_." Lehnsherr tries to rationalize; it might not be what he thinks it is. No one will ever mistake these vials as having come from a legitimate pharmacy, but Charles _is_

_(Oh G-d, **was**?)_

a scientist. This might be some sort of supplement, like insulin. Or something. His gut tells him 'no', though. Call it what you will, but the contents might as well be marked with 'relief'-- the milky white anesthetic kind that becomes its own sticky web. Charles made this 

_(gave up so much… oh, my love, why would you hobble yourself so, and why right do I have to ask when it was I who authored the original destruction?)_

so he could walk again. Is _that_ what Erik did, what he's responsible for on top of all his other failures? He couldn't save his mother or the eight other people who died in the marketplace bombing. He couldn't save Newcomb, and he had been just as close to the IED as the young private had been. He still hates himself sometimes, for all the crap with the pills and the nagging feeling that he's somehow just not 'man enough' to put all these memories aside and get on with being a civilian. You're alive, aren't you? Pick it up, soldier-- suck it up, grow up, get 'er done. Now his merciless mind's eye presents him with the blinding beach and all the endless moments it took Charles to fall. Then the smoking ruins of struts, supports and wires; Charles pinned beneath the steel beam in the middle of what looked like an active war zone. Does it even matter which one of these horrible events caused the damage? Erik may be ultimate architect of Charles' suffering. The torturer of a man he loves but has never met. The thought that Xavier is dead will not be tolerated, and so Erik quashes it before it can even form. The wavering image of finding the other man, his dear professor of embattled optimism and obvious deep pain, becomes a mirage-oasis with something far more terrible lurking in the verdant shade.  


  
For, even if he should find Charles and the warm-moonlight presence he shouldn't remember, how could Erik ever expect the other man to forgive him? 

  


.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Meredith's Completely Out-of-Control Glossary/Notes:**  
>  [+] Cellphones really do contain columbite-tantalite. It amuses me to think that Magneto might interfere with mobile reception. ;-) He probably likes disrupting all those annoying, texting kids at Xavier's school, anyway.  
> [+] "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe" (1940), starring Buster Crabbe and Carol Hughes (the best Dale Arden, in my opinion).  
> [+] "Red Dust"-- 1932, Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Made before the Hollywood Film Code came into play, so it really is decidedly saucy!  
> [+] It is totally a part of my movie-verse canon that Magneto kidnaps Charles at regular intervals, just like in the comics and cartoons. They philosophize, drink nice brandy, play chess, and make mad passionate love-- the latter of which Charles vehemently denies no matter how many knowing looks Hank gives him.  
> [+] Books mentioned, in order: Slan by A.E. Van Vogt (1940), The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (1955), More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon (1953), The Demolished Man and Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (1953, 1956), The Once and Future King by T.H. White (first part published in 1938). McKellen!Erik needs more love.  
> [+] The stanza quoted is from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, "Sir Galahad". The other line of poetry mentioned (*) is from Anne Sexton's "Red Ridding Hood".


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me far longer than I intended type up this chapter, mostly since I kept rewriting the end. I won't pretend to be the best action writer in the universe, but hopefully it's not too discordant. 
> 
> Thank you so, so much to those who've left comments and kudos, and just been generally encouraging and awesome. Extra thanks and little sharkie-chocolates to **Carly** , **valancysnaith** , **avictoriangirl** for their encouragement on this series as a whole. ;-)

Erik Lehnsherr has always had difficulty with the concept of penance. The notion that crimes might somehow be atoned for, paid off like high-interest loans, has never jived with his sense of justice. Oh, he isn't concerned with petty evils: the little white lies, selfish moments, and daily unkindnesses that make people… _people_. He doubts any (entirely theoretical, in his mind) G-d would be, either. But human beings have more than those trifles in their repertoire. Rape, murder, torture, genocide… how can people stand there and say they're sorry, that they were simply unbalanced, or have no idea why they've done these things? How on Earth could they claim that they'd just been following orders? 

It's been a stumbling block for him since he became old enough to grasp the historical context of his own religion. Mama was always patient with him, stressing kindness tempered with an understanding of man's baser instincts. She would remind him that G-d must unfortunately allow for great evil in order to grant the precious (and often abused) privilege of free will. _'Yetzer hara'_ \-- the human inclination to violate divine justice. Dad was always much less philosophical-- he believed the universe had been set a certain way, with rules and commandments and _mitzvahs_ , and that was pretty much it. 

Perhaps, if she had lived, Mama would have eventually persuaded Erik to her point of view. So much died the night she did, in the rain and the twisted carcass of the station wagon, while that low-life slurred 'Oh, shit' over and over again. The bastard had run-- or tried to-- when his actions finally penetrated the haze of booze. Fled like a coward when he could have helped Mama and everyone else in the resulting pile-up. Erik had watched the man, the unbalanced loping shape of a neon-green windbreaker, while he himself had struggled and shouted, pinned between the door and another car's tire. Mama had been alive, at first-- but he couldn't even reach her, couldn't even hold her hand while she slipped inexorably into the pulseless void.

At the final trial, the judge had given the man a chance to speak-- to apologize or to explain. Erik, by then fifteen and fuming beside his father in the gallery, simply stood up while the man was in mid-sentence, turned around, and left.

 

He's never claimed to be a good person. He took lives in Iraq, both by deliberate action and by tangental consequence. The weight of what he may have done to Charles-- of what the dreams _insist_ he has done to Charles-- carries all the crushing pressure one finds in the dregs of the Mariana Trench. Impossible to endure or deny, to rise to surface life, without some sort of implosion. 

There's no penance for that. There's no price to be paid, in blood or return suffering, and there sure as fuck aren't any words.

_(And so _you_ ran, this time. It was your back he saw disappearing, the silhouette of a coward. It's stupid, but its instinctive. There's no running or hiding from something like this, 'cause at the end of the day you'll always be alone with yourself.  
Whatever that dear man saw in you was nothing but a heat mirage.)_

 

The 'Beach Dreams' are never linear; the mirror room may or may not be followed by the flight in, their last morning at home, or those awful damning moments on the sand. What lingers after waking is the relentless feeling of unreality beating through each experiential moment. The contextual, dream-Erik barely believes some of the events are happening, though he fights and struts and gives oration well enough to hide it. 

_("Are you ready for this?"  
"Let's find out.")_

He wasn't ready-- he's the worst kind of fool. Though the exact details aren't clear, Erik knows his dream-twin ruthlessly compensated for many dark outcomes, but never for _this_. The painful, ungainly crumpling of that lone brother-in-arms is quite beyond even his violent imagination, ergo it must be real. Those eyes were never a more vivid or impossible color, and though there was an aching cavity of _nothing_ in Erik's own head, he knew exactly the words shouted by that brilliant mind. _**You**. How could you?_

 

Presently, Erik nudges the paperback copy of The Once and Future King with one loudly aching knee, thinking derisively of the the arrogance with which that poisoned love-inscription had been authored. _'My Galahad,'_ his own mind echoes, and there is a terrible texture to it, like wet silk clinging to cold skin. And what happened to that eponymous knight, the original saintly youth? Struck dead, if Erik recalls correctly, from the glory of achieving his vision.

_'Not much chance of that now, is there?'_ He's never been willing to cut himself much slack, and he finds he has even less for the other Erik Lehnsherr. In all likelihood because he sees in that night-twin all his own sins and flaws merely cunningly rearranged. _'You thought you margin for error could be calculated, and that you could always take him with you if things went south.'_

The other dream, in which he hadn't even *tried* to help Charles, doesn't bare thinking about. He can't put any of this in sequence, either within the individual dreams themselves or between the series. Memories dressed up in greasepaint; blurred and coruscating to blunt their force. How well he knows that last little mental defense, having lost time both before and after the bombing, never mind the wreck from his childhood. Such things are to be expected, or so every psychologist claims.

_**Lost time**_. 

_Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?'_ That's Dickens-- about thirteen hundred years off the Arthurian theme, but Lehnsherr is more than willing to make the reach. Guilt makes a person desperate, like a drowning man seeking air. The only penance for this sin would be to make it Not So.

 

Embroiled in these miasmal considerations, Erik at first accepts the sound that penetrates the stillness as one of the innumerable audible ghosts of an on-coming panic attack. The background hum of base activity is one of those weird recurring flash-back echoes, even after all this time stateside. Not the hail of gunfire overlaid in some Hollywood drama, but merely the rhythm of his old Army life-- that sensation that he is out of sync and the real world is going on without him, somewhere. His knuckles are white, nails biting into his palms, and he's given up all pretense of not holding Charles' copy of the novel as close to his chest as any child's blanket. He almost starts counting backwards, concentrating on visualizing open breathing passages; all the kitschy little therapy tricks.  
It hits him quickly, however, that the current rev of a diesel engine turning over is no phantom.

He's on his feet in the same moment, scrambling up to the window with Charles' leather-bound book still clutched in one hand. When the view of the front drive yields nothing, Lehnsherr whirls around to the window on the perpendicular wall. It's impossible, but that too is a bust. The eerie silence-- the peculiar life-blood of this anachronistic house-- takes command once more.

"You could have been wrong," he says aloud, mostly for the relief a living voice offers. His own will have to do, and even that seems swallowed by the determined stagnancy of his surroundings. He might have been wrong-- yeah, okay, but he doesn't buy it. He's done doubting himself, and there is something _wrong with this place_. It isn't a crypt, for all his half-mocking notions of ghosts and horror-movie props. Everything-- the way the shadows fall, the convenience of the cubby-hole yielding up its artifacts, even those damned synchronized light-fixtures-- feels deliberate. Not staged, exactly, but  preserved. 

 

_("This place is a museum," Raven says, rolling her eyes. She throws herself on the couch beside Sean, toeing off her heels with practiced movements of painted digits. Even as she begins scolding, her hand is stealing into the younger boy's bag of chips. "Do you have any idea the sort of inhuman sounds Sharon would make if she could see you *snacking* on her Neoclassicist Chippendale sofa?"_

_"Poor little rich girl," Erik says, not bothering to keep the acid out of his tone. What he wanted was fifteen minutes of news programming for intel; what he got was two teenagers hovering, waiting to turn the channel over to some technicolor nonsense or another._

_"We could sit on plastic covers, like at my grandmother's," Sean suggests, not pausing in his steady decimation of the snack._

_"Don't bother on our account." That's Charles in the doorway behind him and, while Erik is too practiced to flinch outwardly, he does muffle an inward curse. He could say he didn't know the professor was standing there-- claim the dig was aimed at Raven and meant nothing in particular-- but it would take no special talent to spot that for a lie. He's been needling over this… tactical resource… all day, once again struggling to reconcile the gentle scholar he knows with all the stereotypes and assumptions he hates._

_"I'm not advocating wanton destruction, mind," Xavier continues, all casual cocktail smiles. "But a house is meant to be lived in, don't you think?" For the first time in a long while, he comes to sit not beside Erik, but to perch on the arm of the sofa nearest his sister. "It's impractical to create useful items solely for decoration. Besides," his tone becomes confiding as he taps his temple, "I have it on good authority this is a rather shoddy reproduction."_

_"Only bad boys tell tales out of school." The girl smiles up at him, giving him a gentle chuck on the chin, and Sean laughs. In that moment-- as Charles favors Raven with a soft gaze and a fond smile-- Erik can see the family of two they have comprised for so long. They are diametrically opposite but lovely, at the moment almost perfectly arranged for a clandestine photo. Even when Sean leans over to share some smart remark, there is still an air of commiseration that eliminates Lehnsherr from the picture._

_Erik surprises himself with how very little he likes or appreciates this. So many of his actions since reaching the manor have been aimed at distancing the professor, punishing the young man for an endowment of birth as equally inescapable as it is opposite of Lehnsherr's. Yet he dislikes being robbed-- and yes, that is the term he instinctively uses-- of Charles' attention. Something of this must show on his face, for Raven flushes with coy assumption and Xavier's jaw sets hard, one eyebrow raised. Pressing a kiss to his sister's hair, Charles slides smoothly from his perch._

_"I've arranged for the grocer to make a delivery," he says over his shoulder, the calmest of hosts. "Hopefully we can have more than gas station snacks tonight. Don't ruin your appetite!")_

 

Such a paltry thing, this memory, but astonishing in its clarity. The _real_ Erik (and he _is_ real, he tells himself) is taken aback by the specifics, which are often inaccessible even within the dreams themselves. It's the first time he's really been aware of anyone besides Charles in a more than peripheral sense, much less been readily able to remember their names. 

_'The longer I stay here, the easier its going to be to reach these things,'_ Erik thinks, in a mixture of anticipatory wonder and fear. These pseudo-memories, rising to the surface the way drops of dye bloom on pure linen. Are they external, streaming or broadcasting like the rough accented version of his voice he heard outside, or are they in his under-mind already, eddying between the alpha-waves of consciousness and the delta-waves of sleep? 

It's hard to tell and, while the mechanism might be important, he isn't going to figure it out today. Absorbing information during a day visit is fine, but suppose he stayed the night here?  
_'You might not be able to turn it off,'_ Lehnsherr admits to himself. It is utterly, breathless terrifying, as if he's a hard-drive being overwritten with foreign data. At the same time, its as tempting as the ripe, vibrant fruit first offered in the scaly coils of Ha'Satan. If he should stay the night, he might not be able to function outside, in the 'REAL WORLD'. For a moment, he struggles to envision that other sphere, so crowded with people and noise, commercials and cellphones. _'White Plains, the New York Yankees, McDonalds,'_ he thinks. _'Google, my laptop; Starbucks, vitamin water in as many shades as they make for nail polish.'_ It's a bizarre catechism, but it really does help. Keeping an eye on gas prices, clock in at 6AM and out at quarter to five, oh boy. Spreadsheets full of construction materials and assets, every over-priced item in the vending machine, and all the coffee he consumes powering through database maintenance. 

_'This is me,'_ thinks Erik, formerly Sergeant Lehnsherr of B Company ('Bulldogs-- we disarm and dispose, anytime and anywhere'). Magda's standard "plus one", Edie's _mossik_ , the terror of Anderson High School lacrosse. He pictures the two discordant sets of experience as circles, clear delineations, but he's afraid the situation is more like a Venn diagram. Overlapping circles, interlocked, with that third oval forming in-between. The common denominator is as simple as it is gut-wrenching:  
_Charles_.

 

The book in Erik's hand-- the book he somehow knows Charles often fell asleep with, the one in which a very young Xavier wrote his name-- has taken on an almost talismanic quality. Slowly, the interloper begins gathering the other items, carefully placing them back in the gaudy Flash Gordon tin. When he replaces the wood paneling, the only thing Lehnsherr leaves in the old cubby are the vials and their attendant needles. They represent no temptation for him, but he wants them gone none the less. Whatever they have done or can do to Charles _will_ be remedied, or prevented from happening at all. Not because the professor is somehow incapable of looking out for himself, but because it is the least Erik owes that gentle soul. 

And, because better than penance is the tantalizing possibility of erasing your transgression altogether.  


* * * * * * * * *

  
Erik finds himself oddly comforted by the solid weight of Charles' things, now carefully ensconced in his saddlebag, as he picks is way back through the overgrown woods towards the road. Like the strong arms which caught him up in the dark waters of unconsciousness and pain, they provide a solid connection to events others might dismiss. 

_('…you're not alone, Erik…')_

He has the bag slung across his shoulders, having downed four Advil and half the Mountain Dew before even attempting the trek back to the motorcycle, but his ungrateful hips and ankle are having no part of it. They'll make him pay for his adventure tonight, which is why Erik's only plans after sending off his latest paper and posting to the class message board revolve around an extremely hot bath and a good swig of Everclear. Nothing stronger than oever the counter meds for Sergeant Lehnsherr now, no sir. He figures he's excused in making that counter a bar on occasion; there's only so much pain the body-- and more importantly, the mind-- can take. There's certainly no hope of seeing Charles tonight, for the dreams have abruptly stopped. 

  


The mission, such as it is, has at least been a success. Charles' loadstone may in fact be Erik's cornerstone. Any disappointment he feels is irrational for, though he has less than he desired, he has far more than he could have reasonably expected. There's no doubt in Erik's mind that he'll return-- with spade and shovel in hand, if it comes to that. Part of him bulks at yet another cinematic psycho-thriller cliche, but a far larger portion trusts the overwhelming dream-impressions that something 

_("...my stepfather was quite paranoid about nuclear war…")_

lies under the manor that may be even more inexplicable than the house itself. He'd found no basement access during this sweep, but he can't give up now. 

  
And if he _does_ find Charles-- who, despite the mismatched religion, is now definitely his holy grail-- what then? Instinct says he'll fall to his knees in worship. Which seems a bit excessive, despite the molten sea of flame it ignites in Erik's groin. As he clears the last of the trees, Lehnsherr decides to make that last bit a hyperbole; that's his story, and he's sticking to it. Like his mother before him, Erik's deep romanticism has always been hidden by an equally fervent practicality. It's embarrassing, almost enraging, to love someone to this degree-- never mind their debatable status in reality. Lehnsherr is in no way comfortable with the emotion, mindful as ever of the gross vulnerability and potential for desolation. No one would ever want this feeling-- an almost literal soreness of bruising of the heart-- if it were properly explained to them. Yet now that he's been cursed with it, Erik would not be shed of it even if he had a choice. 

  


Even before he looks over his shoulder, Lehnsherr knows the woods have already gathered behind him, obscuring the house completely. Trees- pine, copper beech, chestnut-- closing ranks like well-trained infantrymen. 

_('Mama, mama, can't you see?' they sang in bootcamp, 'what the Army's done to me?')_

There is a thickness to the silence, broken only by Erik's less-than-stealthy progress away and the fluttering of birds in arthritic branches, that is suggestive of separation from the larger world. The disconnected snapping and rustling do nothing for Erik's nerves, which (thank you, PTSD) never quite let go of fight-or-flight mode. It's a million miles away from the tree-lined streets of suburban White Plains, all neatly manicured lawns and respectable, easily curtailed Bradford Pear trees. Erik's youth 

_(Do you hear me? My youth-- I don't want your pain or your past)_

in clever little cul-de-sacs and neon blue community swimming pools. Ah, no. This is almost a fairytale forest; _fee-fi-fo-fum_. 

_(The blood of an Englishman; pale satin under freckles, the way Charles blushed as though he and Erik hadn't just spent the night doing every filthy, loving thing they could think of and a bit more besides. Once, he'd pinned his lovely professor, kissing at the other man's entrance and then transferring the earthy taste in a battle of tongues. He'd called Charles his 'English Rose' only in that instance, and Xavier had promptly bitten him in revenge.)_

No fairytale or epic adventure this-- just real life, with all the toil and disappointment that brings. 

Besides, Erik knows that being cast as the knight does nothing to hide his own bloody wolf's claws. 

  


* * * * * * * * *

Erik's father was fond of saying that no lock was ever created without a key to open it. His version of 'where there's a will, there's a way'; Jakob Lehnsherr always preferred tangible concepts, concrete analogies. He was a banker who, in a rare moment of paternal camaraderie, once told Erik he envied the bulky safes and heavily cast coins of the past. More more honest than the ones and zeroes of twenty-first century commerce.  
Something you could hold  
 _(move the coin, or…)_  
in your hand.

 

Keys, locks, and doors. Just basic word association, so simple they don't even bother with it on a Psych Eval. Nothing revealing about it, just a logical progression. 

_(Except that they found the drunk driver's stolen set melted together in the pocket of his jeans; except that Erik survived a crash that should have sent the metal passenger door crumpling in, metal and glass free to spear his own small frame._

_And, by the by, the other two people who survived the marketplace bombing? Had been on the opposite side of the square, nowhere *near* as close as Erik had been to the blast center._

_Never mind the screaming, almost-to-blows fights Erik had with his father because Mama's_ magen david _kept turning up the teenager's nightstand drawer._

_"I asked you not to take that, Erik," his father would say during the more reasonable preliminary part of the arguments. "It was special to your mother, and that makes it important to me."_

_The boy Lehnsherr had been, screaming in the final and more resentful rounds: "And don't you think it's important to me, too? Or do you think you're the only one who loved her?"_

_Fucking hell.)_

 

Madga, a linguist despite the less-than-glorious museum position she's taken, insists that even ordinary words are important. Perhaps more important than the impressive  
('You mean pretentious,' Erik would throw in) three-dollar ones. The scrabble-smashers. For example, the word 'janitor' comes from the Latin; in those days, it meant 'gatekeeper'. And they still have the keys to the kingdom, no doubt about it, but the prestige of the position has gone. And 'key' itself-- possibly from the Middle Low German _'keie'_ , meaning lance or spear.  
Long ago, the Romans threw open the gates of Mars Ultor when they went to war and, when those doors closed, the dead were the dead. No take-backs.

There is something, however, that people-- particularly those of the modern, ultra empirical world-- often forget. Erik will see it himself, in hindsight, but for now the simple fact has escaped even his notice.

Sometimes, a door only goes one way.

Erik Lehnsherr has been looking for a key and a door, but what he finds is hardly what he envisioned.

 

It happens like this:

The Kawasaki is in its little wooded ensconcement right where Erik left it, unmolested. Once he clears the final guard of milkweed and underbrush, the young man feels as though he has once more set foot on solid ground. The change is hardly something he can articulate-- whatever dimension or perception Xavier's mansion provided, it is as subtle as it is disturbing. Perhaps it was only in his mind; perhaps Lehnsherr might actually be able to believe that once he's fully away from the influence of the house, and Westchester in general. Out here on the road, the shadows at least fall correctly, and the sunlight has lost its disturbingly over-yellow cast. Depth and color have regained the solidity he's used to, and the bike feels like an affirmation of reality as he maneuvers it back onto the asphalt. 

His cellphone buzzes helpfully from his pocket, a timely little reminder of the twenty-first century. Unlocking it with a quick swipe of his finger, he's amazed to find the clock function reads 3:24PM. It had not occurred to him to check the time when he first tooled to a stop here, but he feels an instinctive discordance with his own internal chronology. It was 11:20AM when he left the VA, and Westchester was an hour and a half out of his way. Lost time again. He hardly needs any help with _that_.  
Whatever hour it is, he's way overdue for a nice trip back to the rational world.

 

The phone's alert is for a text from Magda, which Erik reads with an unconscious smile.  
_'Wonton Wednesday tomorrow @ Golden Lotus y/n?'_  
He texts back, _'Y. 19:00?'_ , knowing she'll scold him for using military instead of 'people' time. He jams the slim casing into his saddlebag and, once that's secure, mounts up and pulls down the road. He doesn't go back the way he came, mostly because he wants to see if there's any evidence of the house visible from the front. He'll kick himself (or rather, his aching ankles and hip will) if it turns out there's an easier point of ingress, but he doubts it. From the Google Map, he at least knows that Graymalkin Lane runs further east, where it joins up with an old three-county highway. He'll be able to head home without going back into town or (hopefully) running to any of obstructions caused by the recent rain.

 

Would going back have changed anything, in the long run? _Ze ma sheyesh_. Who can tell? In a traditional physics experiment, once can easily point to a catalyst and say, 'there-- remove that link, and the chain falls apart.' But does that account for gravity? Not the gravity those self-same physicists discuss, but the pull of events. The grooves life falls into, the way planets are forced into their orderly procession around a star. People flippantly call it destiny and thus dismiss it, leaving it ephemeral and vague. Yet one supernova, one meteor impact, can throw those heavenly bodies into temporary chaos, before essential forces move to compensate.  
The Universe, correcting itself.

 

Slowly, Erik cruises along the remaining wooded road, unable to detect any other signs of Xavier's home. As the trees begin to thin, he picks up to a reasonable speed, leaving the visor on his helmet open to enjoy the spring breeze. He passes empty fields throwing off winter's blandness for their beginning hints of green, abandoned acreage in unkempt sprawls around faded barns and collapsing sheds. At one point, there's a large billboard which proclaims in blocky futuristic letters that TRASK INDUSTRIES will soon be revitalizing Westchester with commercial growth and innovation, and you-- yes, you!-- can apply now online. 

Lehnsherr unconsciously makes a face at this. Normally, his opinion of the business world is pretty uniform; namely, that they're all crooked. The Almighty Dollar will always be the bottom line, and woe betide the mere mortal who dares to stand in its way. Which is not to say that Erik is a particular supporter of any one particular system or another-- it is more that he is a student of human nature. It doesn't matter what sort of high-minded philosophy you construct-- you can't _make_ people be good.

Trask Industries is an exception in that they get Lehnsherr's blood boiling with little to no effort. They're not just a manufacturer or technological development firm-- they're *the* biggest military contractor in the country. They do 'private security' contracting too, which means Erik had to deal with a number of their machismo-fueled would-be soldiers, condescending bureaucrats, and thinly disguised mercenaries while he was in Iraq. You can just stick that right in the box marked, 'Portions of Military Service Not to Be Revisited'. A perfect example of people who expect money to buy loyalty, or change the truth.

_'Take the king's shilling,'_ Erik thinks as the billboard mercifully disappears behind him, ' _and you kiss the king's ass'._ Ahead, he can see where the road quickly begins to wind back through more worded areas, though it intersects first with a little one-lane road coming from the south. To Lehnsherr's surprise, there's another vehicle-- a dusty blue pickup-- on the road. It's the first sign of life he's seen since leaving Westchester's main drag. It turns ahead of him, piled full of teenagers. Erik slows down to keep a little more distance between them; he knows full well how unpredictable new drivers can be, having been one not long ago himself.  
_'More than a decade ago, now,_ ' a little voice reminds him. It seems bent on making him feel old and out-of-context today. 

 

In defiance of safety, several boys are piled in the truck bed, along with what appear to be gallon drums of gatorade and packs of soda. They're wearing basketball jerseys, blue and white, and might actually be the same group Lehnsherr saw in the gas station. He thinks he remembers seeing that same blond-- SUMMERS 03, his jersey reads-- in a similarly labeled hoodie. The boys peer at him with undisguised but vague small-town curiosity, but whomever is driving obeys the signs warning of steep curves and advising slower speeds as they approach the next wooded area. 

Narrow, winding spots like these are tough on inexperienced cyclists, but Erik's been riding since his freshman year of college. (And boy, wasn't that one of the decisions that resulted in a shouting match with his father.) Up ahead, a HIDDEN DRIVE sign blares in yellow and, through the thick trees beyond, Lehnsherr can just make out the white bulk of what might be a service van. The pickup ahead slows appropriately, and then stops to allow whomever is pulling out of the drive to have the right of way. 

Erik idles behind it, close enough to read the truck's worn bumper-sticker-- something about how the real world is nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. The boys must get the wave-on, though, because the van stays put as the pickup moves forward. Erik makes no assumptions about being let through, but there's no _way_ the van doesn't see him pull up to stop and, more importantly, the diver has to know the bumper of the passing truck hasn't cleared yet.

 

What follows takes less than a minute of objective time, but-- like that day in the marketplace, under the merciless foreign sun-- Lehnsherr experiences the events as if swimming through molasses, each visual warped in convex glass. 

The van's tires screech as the vehicle goes from a stand-still to peddle-on-the-floor, slamming through the insufficient space between truck and motorcycle. Erik jerks his bike to the right instinctively, trying to ditch in the small area of underbrush on that side, woefully made even narrower by the abrupt angle of the hill. It's the best of two crappy options-- on the left, there's a guardrail and a steep embankment beyond. He can tell its not going to work even as he thanks any (still theoretical) divinity that he's wearing a helmet and sturdy clothes. 

As he goes sideways, he has time for two images to blaze against his retinas, like photographs they used to take of the dead. The first is the look of fear and confusion on the Summers boy's face as the teen next to him is thrown violently from the truck. The second is the thick black and red lettering stenciled on the van itself: TRASK INDUSTRIES. Perhaps equally as shocking as the two visual impressions are the sheer number of thoughts his brain has time to process. Drenched in adrenaline and millimeters from agony, he experiences a kind of total recall and awareness he doesn't remember from either of his previous injuries. Like a note of perfect crystalline pitch, it occurs to Erik that he probably won't remember this, either. Then, in a cavalcade of terror, it comes to him that he is more afraid of living through this accident than he is of dying. He's afraid he doesn't have the strength to drag himself through the morass of pain and recovery, afraid of his old demon vice which they will inevitably give him to ease that pain. He's not sure he can handle it if he wakes up in one of those white antechambers, echoing with the sanctified choral sounds of machines and pumps, as if no time really passed between Landstuhl and the present day.

 

And, just like that, the strange parenthetical is over. Time's up; time _speeds_ up. He goes down on the road and, like any good cyclist, lets go of the bike so it can't drag him on its own deadly trajectory. A seemingly endless stream of cans and gatorade spill from the truck-bed, adding to the confusion. He can't see the others, but he can hear the hideous drumbeats of bodies tumbling, of tires squealing in a vain effort to avoid sliding off down the embankment. In a moment of disbelieving horror, he sees the van back up and **_drive forward again_** , as though battering against some immobile and inanimate barrier. With an ominous crescendo of metal scraping like a war-cry, Erik and the cans and the already fish-tailing truck-bed roll with that implacable force. The guard-rail is already broken from the first impact; the truck tips like a teeter-totter, forcing Lehnsherr to roll further left to avoid both lunatic van and levering sets of axels and tires.  
Gravity, of course, takes care of the rest.

It's impossible to distinguish the sound of breaking branches from shattering bone as Erik tumbles into the ravine.

  


  


.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will you believe me when I say the cliffhanger was an unintentional byproduct of the chapter break? ^^'''
> 
> Meredith's Completely Out-of-Control Glossary/Notes:  
> [+]A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843)  
> [+] _mossik_ \- Yiddish. A mischievous little boy, an imp.  
> [+]The Temple of _Mars Ultor_ , or Mars the Avenger-- built by Augustus approx 20 BCE, to commemorate his defeat of those who assassinated his adopted father, Julius Caesar. 
> 
> As always, I really appreciate you taking the time to read my story. If I could trouble you just a bit more to comment or even kudo, I'll be forever in your debt. <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing much to say for myself this time, except it took me damn long enough to get Charles genuinely in the picture. Still faster than 'All Empires', though. ^_~ As always, I owe unending thanks to everyone who has been kind enough to read my story. I really appreciate it and, if I could bother you just a bit more to comment or leave kudos, I'd be forever in your debt. 
> 
> Extra special thanks and an _U.N.C.L.E._ sandwich for **valancysnaith** , for all the cheerleading and encouragement!

It is not a dream, though that would by far be the easiest term to use. It is not a vision, with its suggestion of the ephemeral-- it happened  
_(is happening?)_  
somewhere. Yet it isn't the ghostly recording of some prior event, or even precognition. There's no iron-clad sense of inevitability; the feel of the events he witnesses is simply too fluid. During his first truncated stint in college, Erik took a class on comparative religion. The capacity for belief has always fascinated him, probably because he has so little of it himself. 'Occultation' was one of the terms frequently used, and that fits-- though still a bit imprecisely. Like a step outside of the linear, or backwards cryptograms whose intelligible forms exist only in the mirror. 

 

For some Erik

_(but not me, not me; I am Edie's son, Erik of 2065 Waterman Circle, White Plains, New York. I am Sergeant Lehnsherr of B Company, 59th Ordinance Brigade. I am, I **am** …)_

this is happening. This is real life. Nothing is inevitable, because every moment is filled with the un-flexed muscle of free will. The man Erik observes-- whose shoulder he stands behind, a wraith-like and unheeded advisor-- is a man of great will. Driven. He does not automatically think of himself as Magneto just yet, even after a decade… but the hesitation is so slight as to be immaterial. He has passed through rings of fire innumerable; he is an exile from the lands of _Sheol_ , where all

_(the ashen hills are littered with teeth; the air reeks of burning hair, chemicals, and flesh fired to peeling)_

dead things go. 

This Lehnsherr-- 'Magneto'  
_(and what kind of a name is **that**?)_  
has a clarity of purpose Erik finds both enviable and repellant. This one has never questioned his duty, the ends necessary to protect his people and speak, with the certainty of his personal honor, the words 'Never Again'. 

_(Ah, but the means… Charles, my poor schatz-- for you. my conscience will never be clean.)_

 

It is because of Charles that he can lift stadiums, when once a mere satellite or submarine eluded him. It is because Charles will not see, will not fight- would go so far as to hobble himself to better move within the enemy's oppressive world-- that Magneto must go to these lengths. Such is well, for there is little this Lehnsherr would not do to protect Charles and the people they were meant to lead together. He is relieved and glad he did not have to kill Mystique but, if that pivotal moment had not been mired by others, he never would have hesitated. 

 

With anger, he takes hold of the steel girders and moorings and, with serene resolution, he moves the proverbial mountain. Despite the efficacy of Charles' compassionate ministrations, rage will always be an integral part of Magneto's power. He has plenty of it; the world feels wide and strange now, he has been caged too long and lost too much time. These humans

_('Humans?' thinks Erik-- the real and true Erik who cannot move rail trains and submarines, or warp the magnetosphere and take to the sky. Who could not save anyone from ferric shards of bomb or metal bulk of automobile. 'Then, dear G-d, what does that make **you**?')_

will be made to see the fragility of their institutions, their monuments that demand legitimacy. There's a fundamental satisfaction in watching them scatter. Knowing their Sentinels-- classically appropriated just like their white columns and obelisks-- have already been compromised.

_(the jack boots, the marches; the thousands of people who cheered and shouted vitriol as one)_

This time, the deck has already been stacked.

 

Charles is there, of course-- self-sacrificing Daniel amidst ungrateful lions. Does he think he'll be thanked or exempted for any of this? Tear down their clay gods and, like Nebuchadnezzar, they simply feed you to the fire. There is, Magneto knows, no rescuing G-d. If the throne of Creation is occupied at all, it is by a creature unmoved, deaf, and quite possibly insane. The professor-- who could wear the mantle of godhood so easily-- has taken back his power, but of course he'd never do it simply for his own sake. There's Hank trailing closely behind him

_(and who are you, be-spectacled masquerade, to play the loyal second when I cannot?)_

and the supposed prophet from the future. Well, Logan's lifeless, ashen wasteland will vanish from possibility soon enough. 

 

Over the din of the crowd, Magneto hears Charles shout, "No, Erik!"

_(Charles almost always says 'no, Erik', says 'stop' and 'wait' and 'don't kill them, that's enough'. I told you then, I all but invited you. Oh, liebling, you had an opportunity when I couldn't have disobeyed you if I tried.)_

So too sounds a shout of negation from the Erik who watches, helpless, as a theater of political panic and upheaval unfolds. 'You are handing them ammunition!' he thinks, uncertain of this 'they' and why his powerful doppelganger should-- underneath all that rage and vengeance-- fear them so. 'You're falling into the trap, stepping into the shadowy off-the-rack outline of the boogeyman. All the more easy to hate and hunt you, my dear.'

 

It hardly matters. Magneto won't listen and, the worst part is, Erik isn't sure he would either. The century Lehnsherr comes from is run by the trundling machine of _status quo_ , of evils both petty and profound, and it seems no one can stop it no matter how many people throw themselves onto the gears. If you _could_ change the world, make the corrupt face their reflections of malicious piety… mightn't you also have the obligation, as with a murder witness, to intercede?   
… and how on Earth could you resist?

 

Erik's older, darker reflection has no intention of shirking his duties. The only impulse he's working to resist is that of being too solicitous towards Charles. The professor is trapped beneath girder and pylon, but their crushing weight does not-- and will not-- touch him. He's pinned and out of the line of fire. Though the scholar himself will no doubt have plenty of new crimes to lay at his old friend's feet, but it's the best Magneto can do for now.

_(If you do him any obvious favors, if you single him out in any way, they will know he's important. They-- the herders and the butchers and farmers of 'pigs'-- will use to him to get to you. He's strong, so much stronger than even you understand. He'll be alright.  
\--oh, please be alright--)_

"Do what you were made for," he intones towards the Sentinels. Sergeant Lehnsherr, meanwhile, is reduced by the sheer lunacy of this vision to hysterical playground taunts. Loud within his enforced silence, he deprecates his doppelgänger's strategical errors, posing, cape, and anything else he can think of. Xavier's companion's are blurs of indigo and flashing bone claws, dodging blasts from the seemingly thoughtless robots. 

_(' Robots,' Erik thinks, in a mixture of awed fear for his sanity and a healthy dose of disgusted practicality.)_

Mercifully, the machines stay relatively clear of Charles' position. Magneto is in full stride, having summoned clumsy and out-dated cameras to record his pontification, but his phantom companion has shifted focus. Erik himself has no form, no sense of his own being, but he cannot move away from the strange-familiar body which seems to be his anchor. He is not _present_ in any way that would allow him to run to Charles, no matter how much he wants to. He longs to put his knowledge of battlefield first aid to good use, or even simply shield the other man from Magneto's continuing destruction. In the true, overwrought style of Freudian dreams, Lehnsherr literally cannot stop himself. At this point, he wouldn't care to if he could, as long as Charles isn't added to the long list of people who-- despite all his raw devotion and training-- Erik has failed to save. 

 

In his struggle to regain selfhood, he quickly looses track of the peripheral battle and the possibility of auxiliary threats. It's the dumb-ass 'fuzzy' mistake that ought to have been drilled out of him in Boot, but that's the bitch of PTSD sometimes. The triggers are old hat, ingrained responses to threat or combat. But the 'p' ought to be for 'panic' as well as 'post'. It can strip you of even the most sensible training, leaving you frozen in a way that makes you want to kick your own ass. It doesn't help that _this_ situation is difficult to credit, no matter how vivid or seemingly coherent. Erik worked with remote recon robots as an EOD, and has the passing familiarity with drones that comes with any specialist position. The 'sentinels' he's watching now seem at once advanced and somehow quaint, particularly amidst the bulky cameras and sound equipment now smoldering beside the grandstands. 

By now, Magneto has pulled a vault from the ground much as a horse doctor yanks a particularly nasty tooth. Its peeled shell in full of cowards; men with pretensions to glory, now huddled together in their dark, political-regulation suits. Just another kind of uniform. Beyond the crumbling platform and charred buntings, the silent Erik can see what looks like-- but absolutely _cannot be_ \-- the battered bulk of the White House. He's never been to DC, having seen the icon only as a prerequisite scale-model in every disaster film. It adds a cinematic, foreign feel to the scenery, like some kind of unholy CGI. 

 

If only this sense of the surreal could extend to his emotions as well. His own reactions, and the alternating harmonies and discordances he senses from Magneto, are too potent for him to act as a passive witness. He doesn't readily recognize any of the men in the shadowy bunker, though he has no mind for them in truth. Instead, he's trying-- with all the success of a newly embodied infant-- to extricate himself from this other Lehnsherr. Let 'Magneto' go on about the consequences of fearing 'our gifts',

_(and who, exactly, is this 'we'?)_

preaching to men who will only react more violently each time he inspires fear. Being incorporeal should make it easier for Erik to steal away from his own monstrous shadow. He would be at Charles' side saying, ' _Forgive me. I'm not him. Tell me where it hurts._ ' 

 

Somehow, without any of the physicality necessary for such a thing, Erik suddenly feels the weight of a gaze intently upon him. The concept of being seen while he is so helpless to effect change inspires both terror and relief; a connection that hooks him through the gut and leads immediately back to the source, as if he's caught in a sniper's sights. His eyes scan the area directly ahead, a good way across the once manicured lawn, trying to isolate gradations of shadow amidst the rubble. The sense of dreamy incoherence flushes higher, into the realms of fevered somnolence, the moment he recognizes the figure. He can't help but think of Madga laughing beside him in the darkness during some student film, saying, 'this narrative has gone completely off the rails.'

The young man gazing back at Erik nods sagely-- sad, solemn, as if catching the thought. It is another version of Charles, pale like a starved hothouse organism, clad only in the sort of shapeless green-gray garment all too reminiscent of Lehnsherr's own unpleasant hospital stint. The other man is revelatory and antithetical, colored void projected on glass. The form recalls the childish awe and fear Erik experienced as a boy the first time he heard of spirits being trapped in mirrors. The strange shade raises one hand… not beckoning, but drawing the eye. The Sergeant can clearly make out smattering of bruises-- those blue-black violet blossoms of repeated IV application-- adorning pale wrists and elbows. This Charles, perhaps more impossible than any of the other iterations Erik has encountered, is discordantly and absurdly beautiful; at once an echo of some garland-laden Olympian and a pitiful asylum ghost. Frowning and anxious, this fellow phantom watches the shifting dynamics of the battle with teeth almost piercing bottom lip. He's younger, perhaps a few years Erik's junior, with eyes the same peerless blue of his more-familiar counterpart. 

He locks gazes with Erik, just as helpless as their two demiurge reflections argue, the indigo female silhouette seemingly a pivot between their two dichotomies. Watching with a mystic's resigned understanding of the preordained, the younger Charles blurs as though seen through ancient, running glass. It's as if he's having trouble maintaining the light that projects his form, struggling with cohesion. Those well-known yet un-kissed lips are mouthing words, but Lehnsherr only catches a few of the shapes.

_"change anything… consequence… salvage…"_

Whatever else might have passed between the two etherial onlookers in truncated by a sudden fire-ball of pain reeling through Erik. He's not _in_ the older man's body, precisely, but the reverberating agony in Magneto's neck does reach him in some way. It feels a bit like being slammed back into some not-quite-tailored mold and, whatever their relation to one another, Erik suddenly finds his vantage point is now that of the fallen warrior. Magneto has been shot-- through and through, from both Sergeant Lehnsherr's estimation and the diagnosis of the victim's questing fingers. 

 

'That's what you get for being distracted in the middle of a firefight,' Lehnsherr chastises himself, though its unclear how he could have helped matters. Magneto was definitely engaged in the conflict, but the bullet went wild 

_(like another such projectile, blazing brilliant in the sunlight while missiles hovered like waiting vultures)_

and was ceramic, at any rate. By sheer luck, its missed the artery, though it will still bleed like a son-of-a-bitch and be vulnerable to infection. 

The vibrant, sapphire-scaled woman (whom Erik's unwitting host thinks of as 'Mystique') is now the only viable, fully mobile force on the battlefield. Yet, as Magneto rucks his own cape up to staunch the bleeding, it is Charles who once again proves himself to be the most indomitable of them all. His power inspires awe in Magneto, and disbelief in Erik-the-observer. These two halves are joined by an overlapping reverence (voracious and covetous, for the older version) and no small amount of helpless desire. He can't see what the professor is showing the viper-esque woman, but the frozen tableau of politicos is on display for all. Pride and fear surge in Magneto, laced with ironic humor; dear Xavier is providing a practical example of their gifts, in a manner just as terrifying (if not more so) than any physical destruction already wrought. His sweet fool-- does the professor think, no matter today's outcome, that their enemies will not shrink from and revile one so indistinguishable from a god?

 

Even Erik-- younger, but still no stranger to weaponization-- must acknowledge the bitter foreboding. He comes from an era of massive technological surveillance and data-mining at granular levels; of weapons whose fatality lingers long after deployment, and devastating resources barely leashed. The nightmare images of Charles, methodically vivisected in some clean-room or doped out of his mind in a government bunker, are all his own. The professor's civilian existence is as vulnerable as the man himself is gifted. 

_(even if you let me protect you, how could I honor that vow? everyone else-- everyone loved-- has suffered my failures and, already, so have you)_

Whose thought is that? The alignment brings a whole new set of trepidations-- of empathy and contempt for his own familiar flaws. They  
_(I-- **I** , the singular Erik Lehnsherr)_  
are aware that-- whatever optimistic and genteel nonsense Charles may have professed-- Mystique is enough dissuaded from her goal to discard her weapon. Xavier may accuse Magneto of theft, but that's one charge he actually may have dodged. The little girl beneath those blue chameleon's scales? She will always, to some degree, be Charles' foundling.

Certainly, she sees her former leader much more clearly, now. Wounded, bound to the necessity of retreat, she never the less takes time to relieve Magneto of his last protection. The playground cat-call of 'He's all yours, Charles!' echoes in her wake. The fallen combatant tenses with an anxiety  
_(anticipation?)_  
the dreaming Erik does not quite understand, but he needn't wait long. 

 

Once, Mama spoke to Erik (both of them?) of the language of angels-- the burning, indescribable script of G-d's first creations. The shape of your name, written over your heart, announced-- or so the stories said-- in heaven before you are born. Magneto 'hears' Charles speak to him, in the true and honest part of his mind that denies whatever ostentatious titles he may have assumed. And when he does, beneath the relief and unwilling sense of homecoming, that is always what he thinks of. The white-hot blaze of his _neshama_ 's lightning, where it strikes even the most obdurate of metals into malleable form. 

_**(Erik.)**_

While the observer reels, amazed, Charles' will rushes into Magneto's mind, first laying flush with the native consciousness and then embracing that same _anima_. Within the timeless cerebral landscape, this meeting of identities is a sensual slide. One force is knowing, deliberately indulgent in its firm grip; the other quivering, exposed as nerves at once soothed and screaming with pleasure. Each touch is tender, for Charles has always known that gentleness is the worst punishment for Erik. To be cradled, held-- seduced into yielding. It _is_ a seduction, for all the brief period it lasts in objective time. His soul-- which both versions of Lehnsherr typically refuse to acknowledge-- is handled with deft acumen. Despite all that has passed between them, despite Xavier's avowed and self-imposed exile, the professor still employs the greatest of care. Lehnsherr, Magneto, _klein_ Erik of by-gone days-- all conquered in a matter of moments.

 

_(And the watching Erik, who is surely more valid by virtue of living in a rational world? He seethes, covetous, as his presence goes wholly unnoticed. Possibly, it is because what he sees is only an echo. That strange contradiction of present/not-present; the overlap of projection as the rude stranger passes in front of the screen.)_

Never the less, they are both divorced from control as the professor flexes Magneto's _other_ sense, all consuming in his loving  
_(but grudging, oh yes. after all you have done to me, why can I not be shut of you?)_  
possession. Xavier knows full well the poisonous serpent he enfolds close to his heart.  
But he does it anyway.

 

Then, in the same instantaneous flinch of a man shamed by his own exposure, Charles is gone. Magneto finds himself suddenly free, bereft and standing in the remnants of his bold assault. He waits, but Charles will not take him, instead welcoming Hank's support as he shakes his head sadly. 

_'You still won't do it, will you?'_ he thinks, knowing the other will hear.

_'No, you damnable man!'_ is the silent reply. _'And you don't want me to, not really, so don't tempt me when you've already turned everything else upside down. I'm not sure which was more impressive-- your feat, or the breadth of stupidity behind it!'_

_'It was necessary.'_

The only response to that is a wave of inarticulate, despairing exasperation-- so palpable its almost a physical push. Is Charles so eager to see him punished again, then?

_'No.'_ Resigned, the bearer of every consequence Magneto disregards. _'G-d help me.'_

"If you let them have me, I'm as good as dead," Magneto says aloud. Needling, always needling, wanting underneath the academic ivory to find honest skin and flame beneath. 

 

"I know." Another push, sharper this time. The serrated edge is a hidden blessing-- it helps Erik differentiate himself from this violent reflection with his own sense of disgust. He watches, thinking of salted earth and poisoned wells, as the two men say goodbye.

[ * * * * * * * * *]

For a long time, Erik floats as his twin does, but in the opposite direction. Down from whatever fluid media of projection-- of vision or dream-- and back into the shallow pools of unconsciousness where lightning bolts of thought

_('that g-ddamn driver… class tonight… Charles… too cold to be Iraq… where's the medic…')_

disturb the stagnant waters but disappear just as quickly. What rouses him to full wakefulness is not necessarily the pain, but its degree. Though the agony roaring through his body is hardly something to dismiss, Erik's second coherent thought upon regaining consciousness is that it is less than he expected. His first thought is to grope for context, and to marvel that he's alive at all.

 

He crashed down the embankment-- he's almost certain of it. Westchester, April of 2014. He won't wake to the white and gray of a Landstuhl hospital room to take on the merciless march of rehab, re-acclimation, and detox all over again. All he needs to do is open his eyes. That's it-- prove to himself that he isn't lying, drenched in miserable sunlight and his body's protesting sweat, on his couch during the miserable two weeks of "sick days" that followed taking his last

_(oh nonexistent G-d, grant me the miracle of self-restraint to _ensure_ it is my last…)_

pain pill. 

He'd heard the words in his own voice, so strangely accented; _"If you let them have me, Charles, I'm as good as dead."_ Bagged and tagged, as they said in his Army days. If I die in a combat zone, box me up and ship me home. 

Or could it be worse? Will he find himself on a cold slab wounded, not in hip and ankle, but in the neck-- an unwilling audience for his own dissection? 

_(and Herr Doktor would be so disappointed, so be robbed of that final desecration)_

 

Erik's head is swimming, all darkness and crimson, aching from within and without. Lifting his eyelids seems a herculean task, and he's already wasting energy mouthing rough approximations of his serial number. He knows who is he is. He _knows_.

_(Will they say he has killed Charles-- that he has let his dear one be crushed under steel and concrete? Or gloat, perhaps, that they did Xavier first, reducing the body Erik kissed and caressed-- the vessel for that brilliant mind-- to nothing but meat and organs and constituent folds of gray matter?  
Probably the least damning thing they could tell him is that Charles never existed at all.)_

 

Finally, Lehnsherr finds the strength to raise his head a little, lifting equally heavy lids to gaze up through the visor of his motorcycle helmet. The world above him is a blank canvas-- colorless gray dotted with faint gradations of half-formed rainclouds. A dark bird wings across this view, drawing the former sergeant's gaze down to the grass and bramble in which he and his surprisingly unshattered bike are sprawled. The bird caws at him, having alighted on a crooked wire fence-- it is unimpressed by the young man's disorientation, and quickly takes off again. Erik pays it no heed, having already begun a nervous catalogue of wounds. He can already feel two cranial impacts, though they will mercifully be only knots thanks to the helmet. The ground he's laying on insists on lurching erratically beneath him, though he's laying down and very obviously stationary. Mouth tasting of bile, even the diffuse pre-storm light feels as though it is digging little claws into the whites of his eyes. So he has a concussion. That much is obvious, though the extent of internal trauma to his brain is unclear and worrisome. 

His hip is also broadcasting its own waves of pain, but at this point Lehnsherr is just grateful he doesn't seem to have broken (or rebroken) anything. There's a wet feeling on his good right leg but, though getting his gloves off requires a frankly pitiful struggle, his fingers find only a deep scrape on the calf. It's accompanied by the expected amount of blood; a little less, perhaps, for the protection of heavy and now-slashed jeans. It has a tacky texture, thankfully-- already clotting. Sitting all the way up is hideous, and Erik slumps forward heavily for a moment, thinking he must looks like some faceless, disjointed leather doll. Strings all cut, left to lie wherever he's fallen. 

The images still imprinted behind his eyes vibrate in perfect synchronization with Erik's protesting body, a peel of lunatic bells. Thankfully, like such ringing tones, they are also dissipating. The finer points of the vision-- occultation-- are already fading from his consciousness, and Erik gives them up gratefully. It is enough to have the general outline of the experience and all the strange crimes it would lodge against him, sitting like a dark cavity in the back of his mind. Weighing, waiting; he already knows the right trigger-- just as with his old friend, PTSD-- will return the lurking intricacies and make him do penance again. The flash-bright etching of Charles trapped, physically endangered despite the intangible power Lehnsherr's waking mind refuses to grasp… that stays, of course. 

 

"If you don't want him," Erik grits out, speaking to his reflection even as he drags himself towards the black bulk of his motorcycle, "there's no reason why I should have to pay for the fact _you're_ an arrogant prick."

Wonderful. He's talking to himself-- resenting himself-- while he bleeds all over an empty field. Wouldn't dear ol' Doc just love to take a crack at analyzing _that_? Having reached the bike, he forgoes inspecting it for the greater priority of locating his saddlebag. Luckily, despite the crack in the casing, his cellphone is still functional. Barely looking, he taps 9-1-1 into the touch screen, and discovers that is pretty much where his good fortune ends.

" _Fuck, fuck, **fuck** ,_" Erik chants. There's a comfort in the profanity for, despite all the lost details, he knows it is not something his nonexistent twin would say. Zero bars-- a phone full of juice, which was working perfectly fine when he left Westchester, now useless during everyone's favorite In Case of Emergency. Picking the back panel open with him thumbnail, he takes out the sim card and blows on it gently but without much hope. When that fails, he resorts to the caveman method of shaking it, even though he damn well knows better. To add more 'Twilight Zone' vibes to the mix, the time display reads 10:07AM. 

 

There's no way he's been out over twelve hours. He'd be sick as a dog if he added a chill April night to his already long list of bodily abuses. Going unseen by a passing vehicle-- even on a road like this one-- for that long also seems unlikely. Not to mention the fact that he probably would have pissed himself in the interim. Charming thought. 

'Okay,' he thinks, shoving everything back in the saddlebag. 'Plan B'. Which is 'jack shit' right now. Phenomenally grateful he's already removed his helmet, Erik has to take a little break and vomit a-- mercifully small-- batch of stomach bile and half-digested pills off into the grass to his side. Another miserable sensation, but it at least proves his time-sense isn't completely shot. He took the ibuprofen before he started back from the mansion, so it makes sense it'd still be on his stomach. 

'Oh, but you're lost in time and space,' he thinks ruefully. The accident happened near the hidden drive, where the road began winding through a wooded area. The asshole in the Trask van-- another reason to buy generic, thank you-- rammed the kids ahead of Lehnsherr, and they all went off the embankment, presumably into the creek below. Yet Erik awoke in this field. It looks like one he passed earlier, though there isn't a truly unique landmark or clue insight. The kids trapped in the truck aren't likely to have faired any better than Lehnsherr, wherever the hell they are. Concerned as he is-- not to mention dearly longing to introduce the van's driver to the nearest available hard surface-- Erik is barely in a position to help himself.

 

He feels… _thin_. Shaken in a way he'd love to put down to physical shock, though he can feel each minute segment of the sensation working within his soul. That sense of masquerade, of the seemingly mundane painted over some apocalyptic rift, is omnipresent. Bad enough that part of him already wants to panic, to let go in the maelstrom because this mirrors too many other

_(the smell of gasoline and camel dung. Mama's sharp intake of breath just before impact, bizarrely combined with the muttering nonsense of Newcomb just as the world exploded…)_

hard knocks he's had in his life. His breathing becomes shallow, lungs yanking in air at a staccato beat.

"Oh, no you don't," Lehnsherr grunts, clutching his head so that his nails pierce into his scalp. "Get it together, soldier." At his side, the motorcycle rolls somewhat jerkily and to the side-- some part has given way, no doubt. It's a good reminder, though. The pain is interfering with his cognition, which is unacceptable. He needs to set short-term goals. Triage. Or, as First Sergeant Munoz used to say, "Spit and duct tape for all but the dead."

 

Grabbing hold of the handle bars, Erik levers the bike up even as he uses it as a crutch for his own weak legs. That the damned thing is in one piece is nothing short of a miracle, an he's hardly surprised when it doesn't start. Not even a sputter. 'He's dead, Jim,' as Bones

_(another Dr. McCoy)_

of _Star Trek_ would say. Associations, memories of a more peaceable time with his father. Sunday mornings eating overly sugared cereal, the potent smell of coffee as they watched _Star Trek_ and laughed at some of the costumes. Quietly, though, giving Mama her one morning to sleep in. 

Pursing his lips, Erik gazes across the still, empty field to where it merges with the featureless gray sky. More ominously, another line occurs to him-- 'It's life, but not as we know it.' Everything is silent, almost comatose, like a Godzilla movie miniature or those fake little towns arranged for toy trains. The hair on the back of his neck stands up as his body primes for an altercation. How much of this is real instinct, how much the head-injury and ubiquitous PTSD?

"You're not going to figure it out standing here like an ass," he tells himself. Even if the bike _were_ fully functional, he'd be a fool to get astride it in this condition. The only success he'd likely have with that would just be to finish getting himself killed. Slowly, lurchingly, Lehnsherr begins walking the motorcycle towards the road, saddlebag hoisted on opposite shoulder in a pitiful attempt to help himself balance with the weight. Sweat rolls down the side of his neck but, when he wipes at it, his hand comes away red. Shuddering, he's relieved to find that cycle's remaining cracked mirror reflects only another relatively shallow scratch. Jury's still out as to how he managed the injury with un-pierced helmet, slashed jeans, and scuffed-up jacket. 

 

The palpable sense of synchronicity is in no way dispelled by this latest discovery. He shouldn't be walking away from an accident like this, no matter the exact sequence of events. Many would argue Lehnsherr ought to be dead, possibly quite some time ago. Three strikes; car accident, IED, and now this. What is it about Edie's little boy that lets _him_ keep scraping by? Always relatively unscathed. He's like a typhoid Mary-- the people around him certainly aren't immune to the chaos he brings.

_(Charles, in the water, lifting and cajoling before he even knew Erik's face. Sprawled on the hot sand, half-sightless in his agony and as inappropriately beautiful as any saint depicted in the passion of martyrdom. And underneath the girders, trapped and yet more powerful than mere fundamental forces. Gravity, electricity.  
Perception._

_And who stands at his shoulder, responsible for such ills?)_

 

Mama used to shake her head at Erik-- he was, she said, given to grand gestures. Bottled it all up and then _**BAM**_! A broken window, a shouting match, a fight at school. He stayed coiled, nursing lists of enemies and wrongs committed, willing to take the fall if it meant he'd bring his opponent down with him. 

"What are you trying to prove?" his father would ask, and the only thing _that_ proved was that he didn't get it. Jakob of sound numbers, of balances, stocks, and interest. 

"I know you won't listen to me when I say this," Mama would tell Erik later. Outlined by illumination as she stood in the doorway of his dark room, or in the thick silence of a car-ride home after being sent to the principal's office. "I wouldn't have listened to me, either, when I was your age." And maybe, just maybe, he did hear her because she was willing to admit that. "Still, _kaddishel_ , take my advice. Don't cut off your nose despite your face."

 

"Drama queen," Erik mocks himself presently, arduously turning the bulk of the bike parallel to the road. At least he doesn't wear a cape. The pounding in his head has reached an unpleasant level of familiarity-- namely, that other bodily protests can now make themselves known through the static. His left shoulder aches as though from impact, which is brilliant because his ankle already makes that his bad side. Favoring it by shifting his weight to the right means his already agonized hips will have their own complaint to lodge. As it is, the excruciating flare-up of any poorly chosen step fills the edges of his vision with the smudgy yellow cast of gas lanterns. For Erik, pain has never been the black of unconsciousness or the carmine glow of blood. Instead its a lurid yellow; the fuzzy glare of sleep deprivation or scraps of cloth steeped in cheap dye. The shade of the canary that flutters, helpless, in the mine. It smells like candy that has somehow spoiled to the point of welcoming maggots. 

The former Sergeant casts a grim eye on both the empty stretch of road before him and the figure he can see all too clearly, even if only in his mind's eye. Much has left his conscious recollection-- he knows this, and wishes more would leave, still. Let that shattered, grassy stadium be as unpeopled and unremarkable as the horizon before him. Let everything be drained of portent, thus sparing him recursive questions. Spurious logic, endless loops, just like the kind you see in computer programming. He might, for example, wonder which came first: the events of the stadium, or of the beach? Are they both set in stone, or can the avoidance of one ensure the negation of the other? Has one dye been cast, as the warning for a darker tide? He wishes he could believe they were only subconscious reflections, as he once almost had himself convinced.

You can bring a whole damn database down, running algorithms like that.

 

There's nothing for it but to plod through the grass a safe distance from the road and hope to come across someone from town. Anyone passing through, really-- Lehnsherr will even take a Trask service van, at this point. He may be a short ride from the mansion-- not that there's any help there-- but distance changes dramatically the moment you find yourself on foot. Just putting one boot in front of the other takes effort, which means Erik's hardly going to be setting any land-speed records like this. Rummaging in his saddle back again, he double-checks the service on his phone. Still no dice, but maybe he'll reach a point where he can pick up a signal again. He'd just about kill to see any sort of medical professional right now; doctor, orderly, even the vaguely menacing nurses of Landstuhl. 

 

 

Erik comes to know every footstep of that trek intimately, the ever-changing geometry of agony, twined with the distinct flavor of accumulating pain as the body strives to compensate. The physical therapist at the VA still threatens to smack Lehnsherr if he should see the soldier still babying ankle and hip on during the next visit, but it's all a lot of noise. They both know that, while Erik can do his best avoid conscious bias, the side of his body that took the burnt of the impact-- though thankfully not the searing heat-- from the blast will be out of sync for the rest of his life. He'd been slammed into a piece of sheet-metal debris from their armored vehicle, shielding him from fire but shattering bone. He's never figured out how it got between him and the blast center, but how the hell could you complain? The bones that didn't knit on their own were given metallic assistance, and they're all still rattling around in skin remarkably free of singe and blackened peeling. The exception, of course, is his left forearm. He'd held it up to blunt the collision, and it was that appendage that cooked against the very barrier that saved him, instead of his face. Another lucky break, which his ex-Army pals mention now and again-- "Hey, Lehnsherr, it might have improved that fucking nose of yours"-- and that's okay.  
When they don't remind you you're lucky, it means you really have run out.

 

Through this haze of negative sensory input and the vertiginous awareness of his own head injury, Erik gradually becomes aware that something _else_ is wrong. Though he didn't take notice in excruciating detail during his first ride through, and he's hardly in the best shape for observation now, he's still quickly certain that the terrain is no longer just as it was before. The wooded areas, so unkempt and clustered on his initial drive, now seem far more sparse and separate from one another. It's too late by the time he thinks to look for the lonely county highway sign, but the abandoned sheds also seem to be engaged in this subtle shell game. There are fewer of them than he remembers; their paint seems faintly brighter or less peeled, and some of them exist now in fields he is certain were empty the first time he passed. 

He has a concussion and he's hardly a local but, when Lehnsherr realizes he also hasn't caught a glimpse of the Trask Industries billboard, he's disoriented enough to fish his compass out from the depths of his saddle-bag. Not something that gets a regular workout in the civilian world, but he's damn glad he has it now. Especially considering the fact his cellphone is still fruitlessly searching for a signal, the spiraling icon beside grayed-out bars prompting him to turn it off. Battery life, my good soldier-- all the tech in the world is no good to you if its dead. The compass, dependent only on omnipresent magnetism, confirms he's headed in the right direction.

"Alright," Erik says, for no reason other than to hear the sound of his own voice. It sounds raspy, almost drunk, and he feels like he's being ferried around by a bunch of Navy Seamen who don't know which end is up. Then, once more, under his breath: "Alright."

He has to lean in heavily-- almost tipping both himself and the bike over-- as he tackles an embarrassingly gradual incline. Reaching the crest ought to feel like an accomplishment, but it does nothing for his breathing or his balance. 

 

Or, for that matter, his state of mind.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Before all of this-- the injury, the marketplace, even the Army itself-- Erik has always been willing to bank on the notion that, if you were worried about your mental state, then your sanity was probably still intact. It was a neat little brush-off, almost a catechism, for a young century already used to an urban dictionary full of social buzzwords and pop-psychology slang.

This assurance lasted through his teen years but, like many of the tenuous structures Erik had maintained since his mother's death, it didn't see him past twenty-one. He remembers visiting his father in hospice, in those final days when the big "C" had been razing unchecked through Jakob Lehnsherr's body. It had spread like wildfire in the end, a no-holds-barred campaign of mutual assured destruction. The visits were always excruciating, and swamped with guilt that he found them so when it was his _father_ \-- his own father!-- who was dying by inches. Wasting and shrinking, pumped full of meds the side effects of which where no longer a concern, because this really was the end. 

On bad days, when the pain and the substances fighting it coalesced into a sort of one-way mirror, Erik had seen a particular sort of look in his father's eyes that had shaken his notions of the extent to which the body might betray and warp the perceptions of the mind. Worse still had been some of the other residents on the ward. Whatever their particular ailment had been-- disease, age, dementia-- it was really all a symptom of one fact: life is terminal. There was a wildness that flickered, banked but not tamed, behind their eyes. As if all the fight left in them had turned guerrilla; taken to hiding and laying in wait. It seemed they knew something vital had been lost but, in the very act of reaching for it, were forced to forget what that was. 

 

And Erik Lehnsherr-- very soon the _only_ Lehnsherr-- had, for all his claims of wanting to prevent civilian bloodshed, had participated in humanity's first and most triumphant of all lunacies: war. He'd seen that same look come over the faces of soldiers and refugees. What is this life I have found myself in, and where is the path back to what was? There were, too, those amongst the commanders and contractors who had given up on any sort of reintegration; who knew they were crazy, and kept on trucking. 

Now, looking down at a landscape whose empirical reality refuses to align with known facts, the former Sergeant can't help but wonder if this is the last step. That moment when fact and sentience part ways.

 

The mansion sits complacently in the midst of its green, utterly unobstructed by the ranks of trees and litter of deadfall which shrouded it completely just a short time ago. The stone wall has still seen better days-- particularly the portion of it closest to Erik's current vantage point-- but it is far more intact than the mere traces he'd encountered. Every one of these observations seeps into the soldier's consciousness peripherally, like orders barked over the sound and hail of live fire. There is one thing and one thing only in the forefront-- in the churning and grasping quagmire-- of his mind.

There, to the east, is a satellite dish which was not-- which never _could_ have been-- a part of the earlier scene. 

 

To the credit of his training-- and his own distant amazement-- Lehnsherr's body has not frozen, has not skipped and halted like a scratched CD, the way his thoughts have. This latest assault on rationality does not impact his short term goals and so, slowly, swaying with agony-riddled strain, his limbs have simply continued forward. The motion has all the sense and grace of a poorly made automaton, but there it is. It's a relief to know there's something besides the bedrock of terror in him, that backwards grasping for something he had taken for granted moments before. His own eyes must look wild, lost; those same jungle eyes, roving senselessly in the leafy, nightmare dark. Is it a blessing that there's no one around to see him, if that also means his perceptions cannot be confirmed or denied?

This part of the property was never meant for actual fortification. The wall is low, pastoral, harkening back to the rolling moors of fiefdoms the original builders no doubt enjoyed imagining. Thankfully, despite the sudden and miraculous improvement of its condition, the stonework still has a sizable break nearby, and Erik takes full advantage of it. Maneuvering the Kawasaki through the point of ingress isn't easy, involving all the torque of all upper body muscles, which he will doubtless pay for later. To say nothing of the present discomfort, and the significant cluster of fuzzy black stars that mar his vision. He doesn't think he can make it all the way to the drive, though, and this is the most direct path back to known territory. When he takes a brief breather, his phone barely powers back up. Not a signal in sight.

 

The smart-phone screen is dimming, unhelpfully reflecting back the mottled gray sky, when Erik once more feels something wet trickling down his neck. The anxious, impotent blaze of anger that tries to fire in his gut is dampened not by his discovery that it isn't blood, but by the sheer exhaustions that chases it. Another drop of liquid hits his nose, then two more on his cellphone case.   
No, not blood-- _rain_.

Though he tries to pick up the pace, it seems like Lehnsherr is just the passive-aggressive Universe's whipping-boy today. He's almost never one for self pity-- it makes him feel cold, grimy, as though gazes which consider themselves superior are watching his pain and congratulating themselves. But fuck it all to hell and gone, no one is gonna claim he's on a winning streak right now. 

A few drops quickly multiply into a steady sprinkle. A clap of thunder sounds, so sudden and unexpected that Erik instinctively reaches for his sidearm. It isn't there, of course, and the next few tolls of heavenly fury echo even more loudly off that large, impossible satellite dish. His blood is up and pumping; ACTH, epinephrine, and cortisol cascading flowing through exhausted limbs until he feels like he's running on bottled lightning, his bones itching to leap from his skin. For once, its a half-way appropriate response, but the wild laughter it stirs in him is not healthy at all. He's almost trotting now, pulling the bike along, adrenaline blunting some of the pain. 

Head down, head down now, even when lightning lashes its thin whip across the sky near the satellite dish. Another memory wants to come, associated with that metal hulk, but Lehnsherr is in such a state that he isn't anywhere near as vulnerable as he was earlier. By the time he reaches the stone balustrades arrayed around the gardens, it is absolutely pouring. Jeans already soaked through, he props the motorcycle up at the bottom of the steps, now looking for shelter as much as anything else. At least the brickwork on this side of the house creates a little overhang near the windows. Dully, he thinks he may be near the library, but he's too busy digging for his phone again to be sure.  
He rolls the dice and powers it up.

 

Snake eyes; still no signal. Erik utters an inarticulate howl of rage, beyond words or even emphatic invective. Whirling towards the stone wall of the house, he has no conscious idea of what self-destructive outlet his body might intend. Instead, his gaze falls on the window, and the blocks of his fists once more become hands that reach, almost prayerfully, to see if it can be jimmied from the outside like the front door. The first try is a bust, but his hands are wet. Closing his eyes, _forcing_ the anger out and away in the same manner a star spews forth radiation

_(go, go-- if emotion is kinetic energy then **collect somewhere *else*** …)_

he wipes his hands on the one dry portion of his shirt and tries again.

 

The pane and its casement slide up, easy as anything, as though someone just let a breeze in yesterday. Thank G-d it doesn't open slant-wise, or from the top. Lehnsherr is a tall man, but he's lean and fairly flexible despite the screaming fabric of his form, and the window is antiquated. There isn't even a screen. It's not graceful, and he nearly careens flat on his face, but he still gets in. Out of the wind and rain, gasping for breath, and searching for something to steady himself against. Thunder sounds again, rattling his improvised entryway, and Lehnsherr is vaguely aware of a radiator nearby. One that is warm. Frowning, he fumbles for the paneled wall, and is even more desperately in need of its support a moment later.

 

"Really, Erik--"

He knows that voice. His mind, strategic as ever, registers the words being spoken even as his ear lingers lovingly over timbre and cadence. That particular countertenor, impossible to reproduce. The tip of a brown Oxford shoe enters view, but at the at the wrong height. It is followed shortly by the gleam of light against a wheel-spoke.

"--I don't think matters have deteriorated to the point of breaking and--"

By this time, the entire wheelchair and its occupant are framed in the threshold, and Erik feels the kind of giddy, heartbroken exaltation he has previously only seen second-hand. Men and women-- fellow soldiers-- coming home from deployment to see faces more dear to them than their own lives. Familiar, affectionate, but subtly altered. Parents a little older, spouse with a new hairstyle, children inching upwards or slightly more steady on coltish legs. Erik had been friendly with a Comm Tech who was a mother of two-- she said that last one was always the worst. Everyone knew time was a commodity-- or they thought they knew, until those faces showed you it had been a luxury all along.

 

Charles Xavier is there in the doorway, a real being, alive, staring at Erik with only slightly less shock than Lehnsherr himself is experiencing. Only beyond that surprise, betrayed only in the furrow of brow, is a hesitancy. Perhaps, indeed, for both of them. The deep yet unfocused concernation of a man returning home to find all the mirrors and paintings just slightly askew. 

A force overtakes Lehnsherr then, the way a massive _taifu_ might lift a boat until it seems the swell is level ocean, so large and unstoppable is it when compared with a simple wave. It isn't actively painful, nor is it pleasant. For just a sliver of an instant, the 'touch' is not a touch at all, but a clinical _handling_. Then, just as quickly, the distance and ambiguity of the invading identity evaporate like frost from an unfairly bitten vine. In its wake and flowering Erik knows-- beyond sanity, modernity, or doubt-- exactly whose psyche has suddenly twined about his own. 

He'd dreamt this just a short time ago, and been jealous. It's a dull realization, and one that doesn't last. The current of his own mind has been thing unknown to him until it was taken-- gently, so gently-- entirely out of his hands. For a moment, nothing hurts; he is engrossed in the strange sense of rapport, of knowing that is not full knowing but rather the wetting of appetite for deep regard. 

_(so young, so very different, yet the same-- oh!)_  
\--as if tracing a particularly favored curve of sculpture--  
_(very much the same…)_

 

Later, embarrassed in retrospect as he cannot be in the glory of the moment, Lehnsherr will be mortified by how quickly and guilelessly he… _opens_ to Charles. That's the only way to put it. His will has no shape here, a lack of muscle in his own mind rather than anything caused by Xavier. Yet, fumbling, blissful, he yields just as his doppelganger did-- welcoming and welcomed. It is so poignant he feels a stab of atavistic jealousy, wondering if all touched by Charles eventually feel this way, though he knows immediately that the notion is foolish.

There's a glow of affectionate humor, unfamiliar and surprising to the psyche projecting it. Not words, though Erik's mind puts them that way. A tangle, only half-intended for his experience. 

_(it's you, my unknown friend. stranger/mirror/bright shadow. you deserve gentleness as much as he does and)_  
\--far lower, a whisper of a feeling--  
_(… and my weaknesses are always the same…)_

 

He's gone in the next moment; too instantaneous to be a retreat, and as incongruous as the flaming bush which refused to burn. Unaccountably, Erik feels he must have been found wanting. A subvocal murmur escapes him-- something between a grunt and a desperate bid for air. Which is good, because he's pretty sure the only intelligible thing ready to come out of his mouth right now is, 'come back'. (Or worse: 'G-d, do that again'.)

Aloud, the man Lehnsherr has been searching for asks, "How on earth did you get here?"

"Charles--" Erik manages, interrupted either by the roar of thunder, or that of his own overtaxed form. The world tints gray, brown, cadmium yellow-- a sickening parade. in Inspite of his pride, their first meeting ends just as he'd known it would. 

 

Erik takes two steps towards Charles and sinks to his knees.

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... if I say I'm sorry, is there even a possibility you might believe me? ^_~''
> 
> **Meredith's Word Notes/Glossary:**  
>  [+] _'fuzzy'_ \- Army slang for a Private, i.e. someone who doesn't have any chevrons or insignia to stick on the designated 'fuzzy' velcro space of their uniform.  
> [+] According to the _Talmud_ (Jewish mysticism), forty days prior to birth, the name of an infant is announced in Heaven, along with the name of their soulmate. It is said that this divine announcement inspires the choice of name the parents make on Earth. One of my favorite stories-- reminds me of the 'red thread of fate' from Asian cultures.  
>  [+] ACTH, epinephrine, and cortisol are all hormones and neurotransmitters triggered by the fight-or-flight instinct. Suffers of PTSD often suffer from hyperarosal of this instinct, which causes it to be easily triggered, or present in some form all the time. They can also be susceptible to 'fight or freeze', meaning their reaction to a threat is completely halted by syndrome-related fear or indecision.  
> [+] _'If I die in a combat zone, box me up and ship me home'._ \-- from Tim O'Brien's 1975 book of the same title.  
> [+] _"It's life, but not as we know it"_ \-- misquote of Spock in TOS "Devil In the Dark" (1967)  
> [+] _kaddishel_ \- Yiddish. 'Baby son', 'beloved son'; parental endearment for a boy or young man.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I failed miserably in my goal to get more of this fic out before an entire year lapsed between updates. On the other hand, I'm doing quite well on my New Year's resolution of attending to neglected fics! *angelic look* Hopefully this holds up, despite the lengthy delay. Please enjoy the following chapter, in which: Lehnsherr is confused, Charles is hesitant about giving outlandish explanations to people with head injuries, and Hank just wishes there were fewer Eriks in his life.
> 
> Dedicated to **valancysnaith** , who delightfully pointed that the only thing better than Protective!Erik is Erik confused by people being protective of _him_. ;-)
> 
> **Trigger Warnings:** _past suicidal ideation, brief mentions of substance abuse recovery, symptoms of PTSD. Vague Holocaust references within the context of modern Judiaism, very much influenced by personal opinion and not intended to offend/represent anyone else. Failure to seek proper medical care. (Though do you _really_ need an MRI when you have a telepath to check for brain damage? ^_~)_

The fall is graceless, composed of awe as well as vertiginous exhaustion. When Erik's knees hit the hardwood floor, the pain that blooms is so intense it knocks the air from his lungs, like some explosive release of noxious volcanic fumes. The man himself barely notices. His focus is on the materialization of both desperate dream and guilt laden nightmare-- Charles, in whose ephemeral existence he has invested more implicit belief than the G-d of his childhood.

Before him is his Galahad, the comely youth of bright ideals and un-pierced heart tempered by trials yet deadlier still. Xavier is not precisely as Erik has known him in the murky narrative of his dreams, where they both traveled and argued and sought in some odd modern analog of a knight's quest. 'Don Quixote,' Erik's other, darker expression had sometimes thought. That appellation remained thankfully unuttered, for even he knew the professor was not one to bend his considerable intelligence towards tilting at windmills. Charles' idealism has never been the typical surface lacquer so easily wiped away, and Erik can see it even now. Older, no less handsome, the professor sits regally in his chair-- a posture that lacks the conscious ostentation the word usually implies. Perhaps it is more the tired but squared shoulders of a veteran gladiator. That thought, and the sheer disorganized rhapsody of the comparisons not-quite-forming in his brain, makes Erik color in shame and blanch at the memory of the stadium. Just another garbled mass of symbolism-- hasn't he already proved he's retained way more from his Mythology In Art seminars than anyone ever should? But these unexperienced memories have never seemed less dream-like, and even the frantic make-shift levees his mind has constructed can't disguise that bone deep truth. What is seen cannot be unseen, and the man whose startled gaze is riveted on Lehnsherr's own is a perfect replica of the one he could not aid. Trapped beneath a pylon or wounded on fine-grained tropical sand-- it doesn't matter the order of the visions or when the devastating injury happened, because Erik is clearly _too late_.

The mute testimony of the wheelchair-- an overwhelming object despite its discrete and elegant design-- is deafening beyond sound. No different from the blast-force of the market place erupting, the echo of three gunshots on a dreamscape beach, or the

_(dull, ringing-bone thud of her poor body)_

silence of his mother has he called for her in the wreckage of their station wagon. 

 

Erik is on his knees but still going down, pulled by gravity and inertia but also _pushed_ by a profound sense of 'not-belonging'. It's as if the stage-props of reality he's always feared are not only flimsy and two-dimensional, but belong in a different play altogether.

'Make sense, goddamn you!' he thinks at the universe in general and its absentee G-d in particular. And then, something from Hebrew school, which probably proves he really _has_ hit his head too hard already; 'the age of miracles is over'. 

The loss of spiritual equallibrium and his tenuous grasp on consciousness are about to result in a humiliating TKO. The only thing that saves him from another concussive blow is the nimble intervention of his host. A solid rower's arm-- only made stronger by its added duties-- comes to bar Erik's fall in tandem with a quick, deft pivoting of the wheelchair itself. The firm grasp of another hand on his shoulder follows, ensuring the interloper can brace himself a bit on the equipment without bowling himself and his rescuer over. This leaves the former sergeant and his now solid phantom in what is, by the most basic of definitions, an embrace. If Charles were drawing the taller man up rather than halting his fall, the scene would be an eerie echo of their first encounter amongst the delirious tides of Erik's coma. They both gasp simultaneously, as though time has folded backwards and left them surfacing for air.

 

A thought, which Lehnsherr recognizes as external in the same way one instantly differentiates between their own handwriting and that of a stranger, drifts dazedly through his mind.

_'How…?'_

The same question would be on his own lips if articulation were an option at this point. As it is, he cannot seem to speak past the throbbing of pain and the swirl of confusion in his mind, nor can he raise his head to look at the man he so foolishly told himself he could protect. 

Charles helps him settl as gently as possible in what amounts to a kneeling position, though he shifts most of his weight onto his heels. Thus stabilized, Erik feels sure scholar's fingers brush against his cheek-- and the five o'clock shadow which should not yet be present-- to tilt his chin up. The strong digits exert not the slightest degree of force or pressure, but are impossible to resist all the same. Looking up, he observes once more that Xavier's hair is longer than he's used to. The other man is far too pale beneath his neatly-clipped beard and there's an odd air of defiant perseverance about him, but his eyes are the nameless blue Lehnsherr knows so well. The former soldier has scoffed at dramatic cliches and the 'heart-stopping' encounters in Magda's carefully concealed stash of romance novels-- but here it is. Not just the sense of some monumental pivot turning, but a stirring of possibility and recognition. Affinity that rakes elegant yet ultimately earthy claws ruthlessly across the soul, gutting one in sensual ritual. 

There's no mistaking the professor's shock and astonishment. Whatever he expected when he called Erik's name earlier, this cannot possibly have been it. Yet what he says, even as Lehnsherr longs to look away and mask the sense of failure in his own expression, is; "It was a long time ago, my friend. There's nothing you could have done."

 

_Shit_. While Erik's heard variations on that theme before, he's much more concerned with exactly how much of his garbled and likely insensitive thoughts have escaped via verbal diarrhea. He doesn't remember speaking aloud, but his brain-mouth filter is spotty even when he's completely _compos mentis_. The communion they experienced earlier was too strange and intimate for him to contemplate, beyond the sense of exposure and frustration at yet another impossibility that refuses to slot into rational space. 

His hands fist at his sides in agitation as he stares helplessly up at the man in the wheelchair. Lehnsherr himself served one of his various stints in purgatory stuck in just such a contraption, and he knows the quick, nervous glances that seem to infect certain people despite notions of respect for service and 'honorable sacrifice'. It goes without saying-- or rather, it is said in Charles' expert handling of the equipment and the enhanced musculature of his arms-- that the professor is no such temporary tenant. 'Mobility transition', the Rehab KGB called it, as though eager to add the concept of motion as a carrot for those confined. And still, Erik's host is utterly unbowed, radiating empathy with all the constancy of the sun. 

"At the moment," Xavier says gently, "I'm a bit more worried about you, my friend."

 

The faint smile Erik responds with has two sides; dazed gratitude towards Charles, and more than a little chagrin for his own behavior. It doesn't-- or _shouldn't_-- matter what sort of fear-related chemicals his good ol' pal PTSD wants to flood his amygdala with. The syndrome may have carved associative paths in his brain but other, far more important behaviors had been drilled into him long before trauma came home to roost. While one doesn't have to be a soldier to notice the preponderance of discrepancies at play here, _he_ has the responsibility of responding functionally. Alright, okay; some of what he's encountered _seems_ beyond possibility, but none of that matters, and he's still cheering for logic to come through in the clutch. 

With an effort, Erik forces his mind back to the old triage system of priorities; find shelter, apply general aid, establish contact with the outside world. Be aware of the variables you can't control or conceive of, but for fuck's sake don't waste energy _worrying_ about them! He waits for that feeling of cold detachment, armor more vital than any kevlar or hazmat suit, trying to sink into the hollow center of 'the mission and only the mission'.  
If only he knew what that _was_.

There's a hand in Lehnsherr's non-regulation hair and he discovers, to his eternal mortification, that his body has apparently interpreted 'find shelter' as 'press your face into Charles' thigh'. He takes a couple of long, deep shuddering breaths, and the deft fingers stroke soothingly. 

_('He makes you weak by offering a safe haven,' whispers a necrotic voice Erik refuses to recognize. Hand-me-down terror; the ghost of someone else's boogeyman. 'You'd never notice the temperature if you weren't given the option of coming in from the cold.')_

 

"There's been an accident," he rasps out, throat far more raw from his previous bout of vomiting and continuing nausea than he'd realized. "Out by the billboard and that creek area. Near the hidden drive. There were others, they--"

"You walked all that way?" Charles asks, pulling aside the collar of the injured man's jacket and gingerly inspecting the deep cut on his neck. 

Lehnsherr begins to shake his head and stops abruptly. Bad life choice. "No. From the field, somewhere past the satellite dish." Now gritting his teeth, "I didn't see it before. It doesn't make sense!" He starts to look up again, wanting to confirm the conjuration of this unknown yet only long-absent friend, but even that is too ambitious. He has to settle for the solidity of the form beside him and the warmth seeping through Charles' khakis. 

"It's alright," the professor says quietly. "I'll help you, I promise. Just a moment more."

Xavier has already helped Erik by not calling the cops, and the obvious follow-up question dies on the intruder's lips. Despite the ringing in his ears, he's suddenly aware of a thunderous collection of thumpings and banging beyond the library doors. It sounds as though some large animal is giving its best go at a solo stampede. He steels himself to stand, having found at last that empty pivot of _function_ through the morass of panic and adrenaline. A vague image from the earlier not-dream flickers in his mind's eye; himself, face immobile as any iron statue, willfully oblivious when Charles needed his help. All he really manages is a pathetic rocking motion, backwards onto heels already aflame with protest. His left ankle is shot, the constant static of discomfort having risen to a pitch beyond qualification-- the swollen aftermath of which has actually left Erik stuck in bed once or twice over the past few years. Xavier's hand exerts just enough pressure to keep him from being stupid despite his body's clear distress signals, and Lehnsherr obeys. There are several military doctors on both sides of the Atlantic who would probably give the professor a medal just for that. In another moment or two, the second of the library's great mahogany doors swings aside to admit a slim figure Erik can just make out past the spokes of his host's wheelchair. 

 

The newcomer is a tall young man; pale, dark-haired, with glasses so thick-rimmed and outdated Lehnsherr would classify them as 'vintage hipster' in any other context. He's wearing brown corduroys and a yellow-orange button down shirt, the collar of which comes down in two very retro acute angles. The whole garment looks like it was donned rather hastily but, unless there were twenty of this string-bean out there, Erik doesn't see how he could possibly have been responsible for all that racket. Looking at him, the former sergeant feels a shock of _almost_ -recognition. Like running into someone from high school who has changed just enough to be disconcerting. Some people are practically born with the faces they'll have for life-- his father was one of them. Jakob Lehnsherr looked virtually the same from the age of fourteen onward, growing a beard in college less out of observance than in an attempt to gain some credibility. Not immune to the ravages of time, certainly, but the constancy is potent enough that only the addition of layers seems to occur, rather than actual change. He can picture this man-- who looks more and more like a kid-- in gray track sweats, looking nervously back at Charles as he jogs over to join Erik out on the gravel drive.

As one struggling for the quadratic equation years after regular usage has passed, he thinks, 'I know this. I _know_ this.' Once more, 'Sully' and bizarre notions of a furry hulk tease erroneously at the edges of his thoughts.

Oblivious to Erik's mental hop-scotching, the man glances at the intruder in a manner cursory enough to indicate he too does not feel he's looking at a stranger. It's only the briefest of glances, his concern reserved for the professor whose personal space Lehnsherr is very obviously and thoroughly invading. 

 

"Hank," Charles says with warmth, relief, and perhaps a hint of warning. Erik has no time to contemplate the ephemeral strands of steel in those tones as Hank-- not Sully, but _Hank_ \-- responds as though already participating in an on-going conversation.

"Professor," a lengthy pause, before narrowed brown eyes begin evaluating the stranger in soaked jeans with unnatural placidity. "Are you certain--?"

"Quite certain," Xavier responds quickly. For all his atypical calm, Hank does seem to regard Erik with the level of hostility appropriate for home-invaders-- injured or no-- and a bit more besides. It's hard to look contrite, defiant, or any combination thereof with his head practically in Charles' lap. Erik is distressingly aware of the exact moment those fingers vanish, like those of a child caught fondling a jewel or fine silk. Reluctant, but burned.

 

( _Distant, heard through the thin door to a… cockpit? No, some dingy warehouse storage room, so empty it practically echoes._

_"You know he's only playing by your rules because it suits him at the moment, don't you? He hasn't changed. That stunt on the plane--!"_

_His own lips, quirking in a rueful smile as he eavesdrops, far more interested in Xavier's response than the complaints of a man who not only denies his difference, but enables Charles to do the same._

_"He has legitimate grievances. He always has, but his methods…" A pause, a crack in the remnants of Erik's scratch-and-dent heart, but also heart _taken_. A decade of imprisonment and neglect, of willing belief in false accusations, leaves him thoroughly aware he should know better but-- oh! ten years might almost be worth it if Charles would only *see*._

_"They did come for us, Hank," the professor continues. "Frost, Azazel, Sean-- none of them deserved that, and they're all proof that he was right. According to Logan, they'll keep coming for us until--"_

_"Just… don't get your hopes up." Primed from his long draught, Erik exercises considerable restraint in not crumpling the pathetic metal door. His possessiveness-- which anger and resentment have never been able to conquer-- is very much alive and well, and far too expansive for his form. It is not Hank's place to pass judgement, or pretend to understand what the partnership between Erik and Charles should have been. What Charles _promised_. "I hate watching him bite the only person who has always been in his corner."_

_And how has _Hank's_ mealy-mouthed constancy served the professor? Do they think he can't see, can't read the tremblings, the fine sheen of sweat, and the all-to-easy way Charles knocked back scotch?_

_"Apparently you've forgotten quite a few drunken diatribes."_

_Eloquent silence._

_"… I'm a big boy, Hank.")_

 

Erik blinks rapidly, the muscles in his shoulders and back tightening like a horse trying to throw off a harness-- the intrusion of memories/projections which feel both dated and fresh. Keeping his face expressionless is the other challenge. This 'Hank' evokes a morass of associations in Lehnsherr beyond the kaleidoscopic confusion of dreams. There's that _look_ about him, the raw one Erik encountered on 

( _Newcomb_ )

so many fellow recruits in Boot. At almost twenty one, he'd been old for a newly enlisted man. His comrades-- not all, but a fair few-- came fresh out of high school and Bum-Fuck, Nowhere. Even the chips on their shoulders were green. 

 

It quickly becomes clear that the latter impression is not at all a fair comparison. Despite his obvious distrust of-- distaste for?-- Erik and the situation, Charles' associate is all poise and professionalism. 

"Hank McCoy," he clarifies. Not terse, but a functional introduction, as if the sight of the intruder's vaguely quizzical expression compels him to put things in order. 

"Erik Lehnsherr," the former sergeant replies, recognizing also that the social pretense is a touchstone. Comforting ritual yes, but-- more importantly-- an insistence on mundanity. Something is off here, so much so it comforts McCoy to behave otherwise. For his part, it makes Erik equally relieved and suspicious. 

 

"Let's get you off the floor," Hank says, pausing only to hand Charles the sort of doctor's satchel Erik has rarely seen outside old films. He proceeds to haul Lehnsherr up with far more strength than the soldier would have ascribed to the lanky form. With one of Erik's arms slung over his shoulder, the skinny Hercules supports his patient for the seven agonizing steps it takes to reach the nearby couch. _Settee_ , really-- its too delicate and well-aged to be called anything else. It doesn't even creak under Erik's buck eighty weight, though, and his _tuchas_ is more than grateful for the plush burgundy cushions. 

"Can you tell me where, specifically, you're injured?" Hank asks, taking the bag back as Charles wheels behind the end of the settee upon which Erik's head is resting. 

"Concussion is the worst part, probably," Lehnsherr reports. "I tried to ditch the bike but went off the embankment instead." At Hank's somewhat incredulous "I was wearing a helmet, though, and I've got a thick skull to begin with." The snort from the man supposedly treating him sounds incongruously animalistic. Erik watches him pull forth a penlight, unable to stop himself from asking distrustfully, "Are you a doctor? 'Cause, no offense, but I'd card you. Twice."

"I'm not a physician," the other says, shining the damn light anyway. "But I am a doctor. I have the state qualifications necessary to run our infirmary, and several Ph.D.s. Does that improve your confidence?"

"So you're authorized to administer vaccinations or splice recombinant DNA," the prone man jokes bleakly. He'll be the first person to admit he's unnerved and confused, which is always when the prickly spines come out. His natural defense is actually anger; turn that sideways and slap a coating of jocularity on it and you have a slightly more socially acceptable way of dressing up combativeness. Unfortunately, his humor is so dark ('you need a fuckin' flashlight,' his fellow NCOs used to say) and dry he usually comes off as an ass anyway. Luckily, before Hank has a chance to respond, Erik zeros in on something else that doesn't jive.

"Wait-- your _house_ has an infirmary?" he asks, performing the limited contortions his body and the furniture will allow as he tries to get Charles more firmly back in his field of view.

"He has a rather deep cut in his neck, as well," the professor points out, inadvertently easing the patient as he wheels closer still. To Erik he says, with careful factuality, "This was a school."

"It's a flesh wound," Lehnsherr says dismissively when Hank begins peeling away the collar of his jacket and shirt. He protests no further when the doctor reaches for gauze anyway, far too absorbed in those few words from Xavier to summon any more bluster. 

 

'Was a school'-- anyone else would have detected only the prosaic in those cultured tones, but he _knows_ that voice. Knows its promise in the wake of lost quarry; its scathing chastisement of suits who saw only freaks, weapons, and other less savory pejoratives instead of people with extraordinary gifts. The tremulous whisper of it, more vibration than sound or breath, which followed the ragged dirge of hoarse cries he himself knew so well-- the kind which chase you from your dreams. This ghost of speech, the countertenor of flute far off, had once supplied for Erik-- after much beseeching and the more dangerous seduction of emotional succor-- a broken narrative of hammer-fisted stepfathers and mothers who might as well have been sleeping. Nothing to the noisy prowling of stitched bones in his own

_(no, they are not mine-- I disown them, and the fear stirred in me by suffering trapped on film, frozen chemical processes that took place long before I was born. if I inherit anything, it is logical uneasiness of my people and the horror any true thinking being should feel, but it does not _belong_ to me.)_

nightmares, but carrying a strange new element. Familiar discord; old as a folktale, but freshly hideous in the experience of wishing to protect someone from cruelties more banal than the grotesque crimes he'd known. 

 

The look on Charles' face now is a brief mirror of nights in pitch-and-neon hotel rooms. A flush of shame at suffering which, in the face of atrocity, might seem woefully beneath mention. And, chasing that, an uncomfortable acknowledgement that the role of teacher-sage he'd chosen left no room for such histories. Then he smiles, smoothing a brush over the mine-riddled past , the most recent annals of which were clearly not included in Lehnsherr's erratically detailed dreams.

_("I don't think," says Magda's voice, also in the dark, while Erik contemplates every ounce of the glock's weight in his hands. "I don't think she'd be disappointed in you… or ashamed, or anything like that. It's not a matter of being weak or 'feeling sorry for yourself'." He's shirtless but thickly muffled in the sweat of night-terror and detox. She, unexpected visitor, perches nearby on the mattress with such care she almost seems to hover over the faded quilt. "When you love someone, you don't want them to hurt. You don't start dissecting and measuring their misery. She would never want to see you in pain.")_

 

"I'm not seeing any atypical pupil dilation or balance issues," McCoy announces, voice like a fire-bell in the library's native silence. Xavier's eyes are very wide, and Erik colors as he puts an end to the contorted position he's been holding. Looks away.

Having disinfected the gouge on his patient's neck, Hank moves on to taping the gauze. With the bag open, Charles adroitly reaces past him to snag a bottle of mercurochrome. This he daubs carefully on Erik's secondary scrapes, shallow wounds singing while the smell disturbs old-- and thankfully entirely recognizable-- associations in Lehnsherr's brain. 

After shooting the professor an indecipherable look, McCoy asks, "Any vomiting?"

"When I first woke up, yeah. I still feel really nauseous at times, but there hasn't been anything for--" With his phone in his back pocket, and rendered untrustworthy besides, the soldier relies on his not-unimpressive internal clock. "Thirty or forty minutes."

"Does anything feel broken?" A standard question and one whose answer, as the tone of his erstwhile nurse implies, doesn't carry much weight. 

 

_'Aside from basic tenants of logic and my already questionable grip on sanity?'_ Erik thinks, inwardly rolling his eyes at himself. Factored into this damage report is the likely catastrophic beating taken by the thin, membranous wall he's had erected between Charles as an intellectual concept, versus a emotional one. Just as one may whistle in a graveyard to disturb the still (dead) air and emphasize the difference between traveler and permanent resident, so too had Erik refused to invest that last bit of psychological weight in a man who-- no matter how cherished-- gave no sign of existing beyond the realm of dreams.   
Such studious empiricism cannot hold up given the feel of Xavier's fingers and the waking sight of his concern, to say nothing of what Lehnsherr can think of only as the 'touch-which-is-not-touch'.

"About as banged up as usual," is the answer he decides on. "But no specific, overwhelming pain." Which still means little, as Erik knows from both CLS (Combat Life Saver) training and personal experience. Walking on breaks and fractures is an old trick from his lacrosse days. Ah, for youth and marrow that knit back together so readily!

"His left ankle," Charles begins, gesturing, having somehow seen through his guest's soaked jeans and boots. Hank patiently unlaces the combat surplus, rolling a black sock down to reveal a collection of geometrical scars punctuated by the slight extrusion of a few tiny knobs. Erik's little souvenir from Landstuhl. It's hard at work proving it can still swell as impressively, if not more so, than the last time its owner bit off more than he could chew. 

 

A vet-sponsored hike in Adirondack Park, that had been. Many creatures-- mongoose, hedgehogs, and moles among them-- can tolerate high levels of snake venom due to sheer evolutionary exposure. In this same way, Erik and his fellows in the genus of 'chronic pain sufferers' are, to some degree, unable to relate to the typical scale of medical discomfort. Not immune to agony by any stretch of the imagination-- just more likely to stumble past their body's limitations, inured to the warning klaxons. It isn't just pride that prompts Lehnsherr to think most civilians in his position would be screaming right now. Just rueful practicality. On the other hand, he knew a guy in rehab-- an Airborne medic with the fractious nickname of 'Archangel'-- who probably could have hissed and spat his way through this bang-up in a manner that would put the EOD sergeant's stoicism to shame. Worthington, it bears mentioning, was also willing to jump out of perfectly good airplanes-- but Erik still knows he doesn't have the market cornered on tough-guy BS.   
Based on the bare facts of the accident, they should have been hauling him out of that field in a stretcher.

Hank's semi-quizzical look-- the professional version of nonplussed-- reveals the doctor is well aware of this himself. Slowly, taking care to expose the other ankle for comparison; "There's no discoloration, at least. The swelling on the left--"

"Old injury," Lehnsherr says breezily, "There's a metal plate and five screws in there. It swells if you breath on it the wrong way." If that comes off sounding rote, it should. He's had enough practice. He eschews the gym not out of embarrassment, but to avoid the continual explanations-- most often ilicited by interested parties of either sex trying to 'break the ice'-- he ultimately considers a waste of time. But, curiosity being the nature of the human beast, people always ask. Especially since the rest of his leg, to say nothing of the hip, isn't any prettier. The scars there are just more impressionistic, rather than being the result of a surgeon's cubism. At any rate, solo runs and the punching bag he's strung up in the basement give him a chance to clear his head. Inject a little Zen in his life, or some shit like that. 

 

An eyebrow raises over thick-rimmed glasses. "Be that as it may, we should probably take a look at it--" McCoy's gaze flickers over towards Charles, accompanied by a pause both suspiciously lengthy and worrisomely truncated. "-- later. There's the danger of fractured ribs, as well. Any difficulty breathing?"

Erik shakes his head, pondering the implications of that statement: either Hank has access to sophisticated medical equipment, or they intend to wait to call an ambulance or take the intruder to the nearest Urgent Care. Neither option makes much sense. Not that he's in any way eager to shell out copay or waste time filling out forms, but surely even the most compassionate

_(too giving, too trusting. suckled on british formalities amongst the self-assured 'logic' of ivory towers. ah, schatz, may you never know-- despite my frequent desire to shake you 'til those clean teeth rattle-- how thin in the veneer of your precious 'civilization')_

altruistic person would take the obvious opportunity to hand an unknown variable over to good old 'due process'. Frankly, Lehnsherr thinks McCoy might even be thrilled by such a prospect. Certainly neither he nor even Xavier owe anything to a man who exacerbated his wounds breaking and entering. 

"The best thing for now is rest," Hank continues, sounding almost resigned. "Stay off the ankle, keep it elevated. I can give you something for the pain…" 

 

"No." The word is not at all impassioned, though Erik himself is surprised by it, not having intended to speak. Inflectionless, factual, it drops from his mouth like a stone ringing on desert glass. The very lack of fervor seems to startle both of his companions. Another lift of McCoy's dark, bushy eyebrow leaves the patient unimpressed, though he feels compelled to diffuse his rudeness with an explanation once Charles wheels back into view. "I'll take an advil or something, if you have it." He gestures vaguely towards his saddle-bag, laying abandoned by the radiator. "Actually, there's some in my pack. But," he looks at Xavier, at those blue eyes which so engender trust. The familiarity and lack of judgement in that gaze are like a finger trailing effortlessly down behind his spine; instinctual knowledge that he has allowed this man to observe or assist during far more dire straights. For a man who hasn't cried in front of anyone since his mother died, the response to such exposure is like a horse rearing before fire. Almost wildly, he finishes, "You don't owe me anything."

Which is the polite way of saying 'I don't want to owe _you_ anything'. Scratch-- okay, gouge-- Erik's more than healthy personal paranoia, and you're still going to find a kid from the 'stranger-danger' generation. Even before fraudulent charities, cat-fishing, and chain-emails from off-shore 'princes', Erik's mom was helping him check his Halloween candy and reminding him not to go off with anyone he didn't know-- even if they said his parents had been hurt or had sent them-- unless they had the family password. 

 

"I'm sorry if I basically broke into your house," he continues, even as a large portion of him wishes he'd stop talking _right now_. "I swear, and I _know_ this sounds crazy, that I was here before and this place was deserted! I wouldn't have tried to come in, otherwise." Swallowing, throat dry with frustration and the anger stirred by that frustration. The thick ball of led lodged behind his Adam's apple seems only to metastasize when the other two men-- especially Hank-- fail to react with surprise or chastise him for feeding them some kind of line. He turns his focus instead to the object of his quest, unable to tell if the professor is aware of the talismanic aura he has acquired. Are visions-- burning wheels, birds given human speech, messengers of the impossible-- embarrassed by their own incongruity? "You act like you know me. You know my _name_ \--"

"And you knew mine," Charles replies gently. 

"That's just it!" Erik explodes. "I came here trying to make sense of all this s-- stuff," he stumbles, somehow self-conscious about cursing in front of this man. Absurdly, he fears he'll only come off as more uncouth. "I came looking for you." The admission is reluctant, as absurd as the heat prickling behind his eyes. Despite his best efforts, the next words come out sounding betrayed, "And you weren't _here_."

An expression of such tenderness crosses Charles' face that Lehnsherr's breath stops abruptly, chest tightening as though from electric shock. He is vaguely aware of Hank hurriedly looking elsewhere. Like starlight in the desert-- a beauty Erik had conceptualized but never expected, creature of city pollution and industrialization that he was. He had encountered it then quite unexpectedly in a land of gunfire, unholy heat, and all the debris of war; there, the wonder had seemed unreal. Unfair, even.  
And G-d knows Erik has never expected life to be fair.

He's hatching one of those deep rages that are the flip side of his earlier anxiety. He probably looks like he's near to frothing at the mouth, and lesser men have occasionally earned a punch or a slap trying to touch him in this state. Xavier reaches over, Moses charming the snake-staffs of the Pharaoh's magicians, and places a hand on Erik's shoulder.

"I'm here now," he says, sweetness heightened to lifeblood because it is so certain, so implacable. A prosaic statement, but also a sentiment similar to one Lehnsherr heard fighting the tide of his own exhaustion.

_("You are not alone, Erik.")_

Perhaps it is more precious still because, this time, Erik knows it belongs to _him_. 

 

"We seem to find ourselves in a bit of an introductory quandary, at the moment." Having dared the shoulder, Charles' hand next brushes against the prone man's forehead-- a sympathetic combination of smoothing away hair and checking for fever. Erik anticipates another press, more intimate and intangible, yet does not feel neglected when it fails to materialize. The professor seems blithely unconcerned that Erik's typical definition of 'personal space' is three times in excess of the average person's. ('And his heart three sizes too small!', the wits in Boot liked to chorus.) The dreams have been full of this physicality, the easy blend of being and camaraderie, but Erik still finds it astonishing here in waking life.

_('So young, so very different, yet the same,' some voice the ex-soldier does not yet understand-- perhaps only his imagination-- had murmured earlier.)_

Quietly, Xavier finishes with, "It would seem neither of us have all of the necessary pieces."

"Granted," Lehnsherr says, accompanying this with a look that says he is well aware the professor is withholding something. No, he hasn't shown all of his cards himself, but he's pretty sure Charles and his associate have a few more from the dealer than he does. 

"Surely now is not the best time, strategically, to consider such things." The scholar certainly knows which side of Erik to appeal to. 

"Surely the lengthier the rationale the less likely it is to be true?" It's lazy return shot, and really only a formality. Those fingers-- ink-stained, he can see at this proximity-- have tucked back a lock of Erik's hair, coming to rest with studied inconspicuousness on the cushion beside his elbow. The challenge strikes the patient himself as sounding hazy, like the kind of nonsense you might spout before an intimate argument becomes… something else. A part of him does believe the protest-- a logical explanation should be fairly concise, in most cases. The rest of him just wishes he could summon up more irritation with the scholar's reticence. 

His comment provokes only a brief laugh from Charles, which seems to startle the man himself. "Generally, I agree with you-- though I have encountered some unfortunate exceptions."

 

"Like quantum mechanics," Hank opines dryly, and with an irony Erik doesn't get. He lets it go, knowing himself the fluctuating solidity that comes when other people in the room are utterly focused on one another. 

"Indeed," Charles agrees, shooting McCoy what is-- for him-- a warning look. "One hesitates to describe any accident as 'typical', but I think we can all recognize that there are anomalies in this one that might require… shall we say, 'less than routine procedures'? Another grudging nod from Erik, whose current view of the mental chessboard is wavering under bone-deep fatigue and the sense his current throbbing headache has developed a catastrophic migraine of its own.

 

"Two questions. For now," Lehnsherr adds warningly.

"Understandable. There are some things I want to check before we have any involved discussion, though." Charles makes no attempt to hide the worry furrowing his brow. The former sergeant remembers, with an agonizing prick, that Xavier had called to him as though expecting

_(the other, the masterless and unmastered monster hunter, the one responsible for a single missed bullet he somehow managed to fail at twice…)_

someone else.

"When I couldn't find you earlier… Did you do that on purpose?" He'd love it if that would come out less hollow and more confrontational. No such luck, and he knows his eyes are riveted on that face, so open and yet capable of concealing an optimism and hope Erik cannot fathom. 

"Oh, my friend," Charles murmurs so low Lehnsherr is surprised he's able to hear it, accompanying this with a squeeze of the hand. "Had I any way of knowing you were searching, I would not purposefully have concealed myself."

"And you're not with some government project?" the patient waves his hand vaguely, to show this last word encompasses any number of black-box shenanigans. 

Now both McCoy and the professor laugh-- the sort of rough, nervous bark you direct at yourself. "Far from it," Xavier assures. "In fact, you might say we have a distinct investment in avoiding the government's scrutiny as well."

Erik nods solemnly, recognizing the statement for what it is-- a weakness revealed to encourage good faith. "Then in the interests of full disclosure, I'm ex-Army."

 

" _Which_ army?" Hank asks, as if this is the most puzzling concept he's been presented with thus far. Said former sergeant might not find McCoy objectionable ordinarily, but he also gets the feeling he might never have a ton of patience for the guy, either.

"Why, the army of Gandalf the Gray, of course," Lehnsherr retorts, sarcasm on full parade. When this provokes bemusement rather than annoyance from his intended target, he says, " _This_ army-- of the United States of America, if you can but dig it." Looking over at Charles, he asks far more gently, "That's not a problem, is it?"

The professor shakes his head, fixing each of the other men in turn with a gaze quite worthy of any put-upon elementary teacher. The smile that peeks out forces Erik to master the urge to smile back. "No more than my rather obvious dual citizenship, I trust?"

"Alright," Erik says, sighing heavily. His acquiescence is announced to the unhelpful wood-paneled ceiling as he lies back on the settee, resigning himself to the fact the light at the end of this rabbit hole has been delayed for the time being.

 

This-- he insists to himself, wishing he sounded more grudging even in his own mind-- had better be one **_hell_** of an explanation. 

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [+] **Combat Lifesaver (CLS)** \- training provided to augment first aid for self and others with slightly more in-depth emergency field/survival aid. Until 2014, the course was a part of Basic Training, though it has now been moved to first duty station.  
> [+] **mercurochrome** \- a formerly common household antiseptic for minor wounds and burns. It was banned in 1998 due to its main ingredient, mercury. Of course, my mom used it on me, and I turned out fine. ^_~
> 
> … More stealth-fussing!Charles and flummoxed!Erik to come. As always, thank you so much for reading. If I could bother you to comment or kudos, I'll be forever in your debt!


End file.
